REMARKS ON THE LEVIATHAN AND BEHEMOTH. 145 



tbe Nile alone; but that saurian so much surpassed in size all 

 others known to the Hebrews, and was so distinguished from them 

 by a strength and ferocity dangerous to man, that we might naturally 

 expect they would have a specific name for it : this name was most 

 probably leviathan. Leviathan is strictly joined or coupled than ; 

 and the name seems to have reference to the manner in which the 

 scales or mail plates of the crocodile are joined together, described 

 in Job 41, ver. 15, 16, and 17. There appears to be no evidence 

 that the megalosaurus possessed similar annour. 



The reference to the than and the Itviathan consecutively in a 

 sentence or verse, has led to the conclusion that they could not be 

 identical ; it has been, however, shown from the construction and con- 

 nexion, that in these cases they ai'e pure synonemes, and may be 

 used interchangeably. It is common in Hebrew poetical writings, 

 such as Isaiah and the Psalms, when anything is predicated in them 

 of any subject whatever for which the writers had more than one name, 

 that two or more names are introduced, and which are equivalent 

 to each other. In the twenty-seventh chaptei of Isaiah which has 

 been referred to, the first verse contains the equivalent terms levia- 

 than and thanin ; the eleventh verse, mercy and favour. In the 

 twenty-fifth chapter, verse 2, the words heap and ruin are syno- 

 nymously introduced ; and in the seventh verse, the words covering 

 and vail ; indeed in Isaiah the examples of this manner of speech are 

 endless. Again, in Psalm 74, ver, 13, 14, both thanin and leviathan 

 are used to express the same animal. The poet obviously refers 

 to the passage of the Red Sea, and the destruction of the Egyptians 

 there, so that tlianin and leviathan are both types of Egypt. By 

 attending to the structure of this Psalm from the beginning, it will be 

 seen that there is frequently a repetition of a thought expressed in 

 varied terms, as in verse second, verse ninth,'and verse tenth : it then 

 becomes obvious that ** Thou breakest the heads of the thanin in the 

 waters," is a thought repeated in the terms which follow — ** Thou 

 breakest the head of leviathan in j)ieces." 



But another olyection is urged to the identity of the crocodile with 

 the leviathan, arising from the impossibility implied, first, by the 

 question in Job, chap. 41 — " Canst thou draw out leviathan with a 

 hook," &c., of capturing or destroying the latter animal ; and 

 again by other passages in the same book, strikingly indicative of 



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