12 MICHAEL V. FOX whether humans can capture him with hooks, for though 40,24 is for- mulated as an indicative it may be an unmarked rhetorical question meaning that Behemoth cannot be captured even by hooks in his nose and eyes. (Hippopotami were in fact hunted in Egypt, but the author may not have known this.) In any case, the hippopotamus is most def- initely a formidable beast. Though Leviathan is usually thought to be a crocodile 42, the picture of Leviathan is, I have argued 43, based on whales, or per- haps whales conflated with schools of dolphins. Whales could be known from reports of seafarers, — “those who go down to the sea” as they are called in Ps 107,23, and who are said to tell God’s wonders (v. 24). Ben Sira (43,24-25) likewise speaks of “those who go down to the sea” and tell of its wonders, namely God’s amazing creatures and “the power of Rahab”. I do not say that Leviathan in Job is a whale, but that this depiction is based on one. Leviathan was a sea monster who could be imagined variously from features of actual animals, such as a serpent’s coiling 44. And contrary to a common notion, whales are to be found in the Mediterranean 45. The whale, not the crocodile, “sneezes”, ejecting a spout that can be said to glow when the sun shines through it (41,10a) and be pictured as smoke or steam (41,12). And the whale, not the croc- odile, stirs up the depths and makes the abyss seem to boil (41,23) by leaping and crashing back into the water, and thereby leaving behind a white wake (bytn) (41,24). See CLINES, Job 38-42, 155-156. The biblical authors pictured Leviathan 42 in various ways. In Isa 27,1, Leviathan is called a “swift serpent”; thus too in Job 26,13. But this epithet cannot possibly fit the Leviathan in Job 41. Nor is Leviathan in Job 41 compatible with the monster of multiple heads (Ps 74,14; KTU 1.5.I.3). Though a crocodile might be called a serpent, it could not have been more than vaguely the model for the mythical Leviathan, who was a deep-sea creature. FOX, “Behemoth and Leviathan”, 264-266. 43 Until modern times, whales were often depicted in fantastic and mon- 44 strous guises; see the references in my “Behemoth and Leviathan”, 265. In any case, the distinction between real and mythological animals is a modern one. The creatures mentioned in Isa 13,21 and 34,14 include both real animals and demons, all of them assumed to actually reside in the desert. These include the fin whale and the sperm whale. See P.G.H. EVANS, 45 The Natural History of Whales & Dolphins (London 1987) 60-69; 93-94, and further references in FOX, “Behemoth and Leviathan”. © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati