APPENDIX. 
143 
strength : thou breakest the heads of the dragons in 
the waters. Thou breakest the heads of leviathan 
in pieces, and gavest him to he meat to the people 
inhabiting the wilderness.” Now it can hardly be 
presumed that the children of Israel were to eat 
either dragons, serpents, or crocodiles ; in fact, these 
verses cannot be taken literally, for we are referred 
by the commentator to the 14th chapter of Numbers, 
where Joshua tells the children of Israel that they 
shall prevail over the Hittites, the Jebusites and the 
Amorites, in the 9th verse. “ Only rebel not ye 
against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the 
land : for they are bread for us : their defence is 
departed from them, and the Lord is with us: fear 
them not.” Now nobody supposes that the children 
of Israel were cannibals, and that they meant to eat 
the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites for 
bread, any more than they were to eat the crocodile, 
the dragon, or the leviathan for meat . The Bible 
simply means to tell us here, that the people of the 
land flowing with milk and honey would be de¬ 
stroyed by them, as the hosts of Pharaoh were de¬ 
stroyed in the Red Sea, or the same as the Lord 
broke “ the heads of leviathan in pieces.” But 
to conclude this argument, I shall insist that the levi¬ 
athan cannot be a crocodile, because crocodiles only 
swim in fresh water , and the leviathan is usually 
mentioned as swimming in the sea . But commenta¬ 
tors say that the sea means in some cases the river 
Nile, and, as there were plenty of crocodiles in the 
Nile, and the 41st chapter of Job, 30th verse, de¬ 
clares that the leviathan comes on shore, therefore 
the leviathan is a crocodile. Well, it is a comfort to 
find that we are no longer contending with a whale, 
or a whirlpool; for I presume that it is very rare 
to meet with either the one or the other on shore. 
Commentators (even the most learned) seem to be 
a little in doubt as to the true meaning of this word 
