Job 41 (Part 2), The Greek Called It a Dragon
Examining how ancient translators understood Leviathan, and why their choice matters.
Hello brothers and sisters.
Welcome to the second in this 4-part series about the creature in Job 41.
In Part 1, we established that Job 41 describes something that looks, sounds, and acts like what every culture would call a dragon. We saw that when ancient Jewish scholars translated this passage into Greek, they didn’t soften or explain it away; they called it δράκων, a dragon.
But that raises an important question: How reliable is this translation? Were the LXX translators simply being dramatic, choosing a sensational Greek word to spice up the text? Or were they faithfully conveying what they understood from the Hebrew?
To answer that, we need to dig into the actual textual differences between the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT) and the Greek Septuagint (LXX) in Job 41. What we’ll discover is that the ancient translators not only took this passage seriously, in some cases they amplified small details that emphasize the creature’s dragon-like properties.
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The Translation Challenge of Job
Before we examine specific verses, we need to understand something important about the Greek translation of Job: it was notoriously difficult to translate.
The Hebrew text of Job is packed with rare vocabulary, unusual grammatical constructions, and poetic imagery that defies easy rendering into another language. Modern translators still struggle with many passages. The LXX translator(s) faced this challenge around 200 BC, working in Alexandria, Egypt, surrounded by a Hellenistic culture that had its own rich tradition of monster mythology.
Scholars have noted that the Greek version of Job is approximately one-sixth shorter than the Hebrew text, so about 400 lines. For decades, this led to speculation that the LXX was based on a different Hebrew source text. But closer examination revealed a simpler explanation: the translator(s) condensed the lengthy poetic speeches, removing what they saw as repetitive phrases, to make the text more accessible to Greek readers accustomed to a different literary style.
In other words, when the LXX translator(s) encountered something they couldn’t understand or found redundant, they sometimes shortened it. But that leads us to the significant part: when they came to Job 41, they didn’t shorten it substantially. They didn’t avoid it. They translated it carefully, choosing Greek vocabulary that would convey to their audience exactly what kind of creature this was.
The Fundamental Choice: Δράκων
Let’s start with the most important textual decision in the entire chapter.
Job 41:1 MT (Hebrew):
תִּמְשֹׁךְ לִוְיָתָן בְּחַכָּה “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?”
Job 41:1 LXX (Greek - numbered as 40:25 in LXX):
ἄξεις δὲ δράκοντα ἐν ἀγκίστρῳ “Will you draw out the dragon with a fishhook?”
The Hebrew word here is לִוְיָתָן (livyatan)—Leviathan. It’s a proper noun, a name. The translators could have simply transliterated it into Greek as Leviathan (Λεβιαθαν), as they sometimes did with Hebrew names they found difficult to translate.
But they didn’t.
They made an interpretive decision. They looked at the description that follows— 34 verses of detailed physical characteristics —and they concluded that the Greek-speaking audience needed to understand what kind of creature this was. So they chose δράκων (drakōn): dragon.
This wasn’t an arbitrary choice. In Greek literature and mythology, δράκων specifically denoted a serpentine creature, often of enormous size, frequently associated with water, sometimes with multiple heads, and possessing supernatural or semi-divine power. Think of Python, the dragon that guarded the Delphic oracle, slain by Apollo. Think of Ladon, the hundred-headed dragon that guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. Think of the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece.
When the LXX translators used δράκων, they were telling their Greek readers: “This is that kind of creature. This is a dragon.”
The Consistency of the Choice
This wasn’t an isolated decision in Job 41. The LXX translators consistently used δράκων when translating references to Leviathan and related creatures throughout Scripture:
Psalm 74:13-14 (LXX 73:13-14): The MT speaks of breaking “the heads of tanninim [dragons/sea monsters] on the waters” and crushing “the heads of Leviathan.”
The LXX translates: “You crushed the heads of the drakontōn [dragons] upon the water. You crushed the heads of the drakōn [dragon].”
Isaiah 27:1: The MT prophesies that the LORD will punish “Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent... the tannin [dragon] that is in the sea.”
The LXX uses δράκων for both Leviathan and the sea serpent: “the drakōn the fleeing serpent... the drakōn in the sea.”
The only exception is Job 3:8, where Leviathan is mentioned more cryptically and briefly. There, the LXX uses κῆτος (kētos), meaning “sea monster” or “great fish” (the same word used for the creature that swallowed Jonah). But when we get to Job 41, where God provides the full, detailed description, the translator returns to δράκων: dragon.
The pattern is clear: when describing this creature in detail, the ancient translators understood it as a dragon.
Amplifying the Fire
One of the most striking aspects of Job 41 is its description of fire-breathing. Modern readers often try to minimize this, suggesting it’s poetic exaggeration or that it refers to the creature’s hot breath in cold air. But the LXX translation doesn’t soften these passages. In fact, if anything it makes them more vivid.
Job 41:19 (LXX 41:11) - The Burning Lamps:
MT: “Out of his mouth go burning torches; sparks of fire leap out.”
LXX: “Out of his mouth come burning lamps, and grates of fire are scattered abroad.”
The MT’s “sparks of fire” becomes in the LXX “grates of fire” (ἐσχάραι πυρός, escharai pyros): literally the grates on which burning coals rest. The translator wants you to picture not just sparks, but sustained burning, like coals sitting on braziers.
Job 41:20 (LXX 41:12) - The Smoking Nostrils:
MT: “Out of his nostrils goes smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.”
LXX: “The smoke of a furnace burning with a fire of coals [comes from his nostrils].”
Again, the LXX amplifies rather than diminishes. The Hebrew mentions smoke like from a pot; the Greek makes it explicit saying this is the smoke of a furnace, burning with actual coals.
Job 41:21 (LXX 41:13) - The Igniting Breath:
MT: “His breath kindles coals, and a flame goes out of his mouth.”
LXX: “His soul ignites coals, and a flame goes forth from his mouth.”
Here both texts are in complete agreement. The creature’s very being— whether you translate it as “breath” or “soul” —ignites coals. And flames proceed from its mouth.
These aren’t vague poetic images. The ancient translators understood this to be a literal description of fire-breathing, and translated it accordingly. They lived much closer in time to these events than we do. They worked in a culture that still remembered the ancient world. And they had no reason to be embarrassed by a fire-breathing creature; Greek mythology was full of them.
The Impenetrable Scales
Both the MT and LXX agree on the creature’s armor-like scales, but let’s look at how the Greek captures this:
Job 41:15-17 (LXX 41:7-9):
The MT describes the creature’s back as “rows of shields” (maginnim), so tightly sealed that no air can pass between them. Each scale is so close to the next that they stick together and cannot be parted.
The LXX translates this faithfully, emphasizing the impenetrability of the armor. The Greek word for “shields” is ἀσπίδες (aspides), which is the same word used for the famous Greek hoplon shield. The translator wants his Greek readers to understand: these aren’t just tough scales. These are shields. Military-grade armor. Part of the creature’s body.
This is consistent with ancient descriptions of dragons as having virtually impenetrable hides. In Greek mythology, dragon scales were often proof against weapons. The LXX translator recognized this parallel and made sure his Greek readers would too.
The Terrifying Visage
Job 41:18 (LXX 41:10) - The Luminous Features:
MT: “His sneezings flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.”
LXX: “His sneezing is the brightness of fire, and his eyes [are like] the appearance of the morning star.”
Both texts describe a creature that emits light, both from its nostrils when it sneezes and from its eyes. The LXX makes the eyes even more dramatic: not just “like the dawn” but like “the morning star,” that is, like Venus, the brightest object in the pre-dawn sky after the moon.
This bioluminescence is one of the details that makes purely natural explanations difficult. Crocodiles don’t have glowing eyes. Neither do whales. But dragon eyes that glow like stars? That fits perfectly with worldwide dragon mythology.
A Unique LXX Addition: Mocked by Angels
This part is really interesting. The LXX contains information about Behemoth and Leviathan that doesn’t appear in the MT at all.
Job 40:19 LXX: After describing Behemoth, the LXX adds a line not found in the Hebrew: Behemoth was created “to be mocked by angels.”
Job 41:24 LXX: Similarly, regarding Leviathan, the LXX states that it too was made “to be mocked by angels.”
What do we make of this addition?
First, it tells us that the ancient Jewish translators understood these creatures as real beings. They are not metaphors, not symbols of chaos, but actual creatures that angels could mock. You can’t mock a metaphor. You can’t mock a symbol. You can only mock something that actually exists.
Second, it reveals an early Jewish tradition about these creatures that didn’t make it into the Hebrew text as we have it. This tradition held that Behemoth and Leviathan— powerful as they are among earthly creatures —are still far beneath angelic beings in the cosmic hierarchy. Angels can mock them because, formidable as these creatures are to humans, they’re nothing compared to spiritual beings.
Third, this addition connects these creatures explicitly to the spiritual realm. The translators saw fit to mention angels in connection with them. Why? Perhaps because there was a tradition (later preserved in fragmentary form in texts like the Book of Giants) that angels— or their fallen counterparts —had encountered these creatures in the antediluvian world.
The Aquatic Monster
The descriptions of Leviathan in water are remarkably consistent between MT and LXX:
Job 41:31-32 (LXX 41:23-24) - Boiling the Sea:
MT: “He makes the deep boil like a pot; he makes the sea like a pot of ointment. Behind him he leaves a shining wake; one would think the deep to be white-haired.”
The LXX follows this closely, describing how the creature makes the depths boil and leaves a luminous trail in the water.
This detail is significant. What would cause the sea to boil? Perhaps the heat of the creature’s body or its fiery breath. What would cause a glowing wake? Perhaps bioluminescence, perhaps heat, perhaps some combination of both. Whatever the explanation, both texts agree: this creature transforms the water around it.
However, one must consider the alternative translations of the word translated here as “shining." אוֹר ('ôr) is typically translated as shining, illuminating, or sparking. However, it can also mean glistening, so we have to consider that rather than illumination this could refer merely to a tremendous foaming wake as created by an enormous form at tremendous speed. It's notable that this reading does nothing to diminish the power inherent in this passage.
Job 41:7 (LXX 40:31) - The Enormous Tail:
Here the LXX includes a fascinating detail that differs from the MT. Where the MT asks if you can fill Leviathan’s skin with harpoons, the LXX says something different:
“All the assembled ships could not carry the skin of [just] its tail, and in fishing boats, its head.”
This addition emphasizes the sheer scale of the creature. An entire flotilla couldn’t transport the hide of its tail alone. Its head would fill fishing boats. This is not a crocodile. This is not a whale. This is something of extraordinary size.
The Invincibility Passages
Both texts agree extensively on Leviathan’s invulnerability to weapons:
Job 41:26-29 (LXX 41:18-21):
The MT and LXX both catalog ancient weaponry— sword, spear, dart, javelin, arrow, sling stones —all useless against this creature. It treats iron as straw and bronze as rotten wood.
The LXX translators didn’t soften this. They didn’t rationalize it. They translated it straightforwardly because they understood this to be describing a creature genuinely impervious to human weapons. Which is exactly how dragons were portrayed in Greek mythology.
In fact, one of the defining characteristics of Greek dragons was their resistance to normal weapons. Heroes needed special weapons— typically gifts from gods in the form of magical swords, blessed arrows, etc. —to defeat them. The idea of a dragon-like creature being immune to conventional weaponry would have made perfect sense to a Greek audience.
The Climactic Statement
Both texts build to the same climax, though with slight variations:
Job 41:33-34 (LXX 41:25-26) - King of the Proud:
MT: “On earth there is not his like, a creature without fear. He sees everything that is high; he is king over all the sons of pride.”
LXX: “There is nothing upon the earth like him, made to be mocked by my angels. He beholds every high thing; he is king over all in the waters.”
The MT emphasizes the creature’s fearlessness and its supremacy over “sons of pride” (perhaps other mighty creatures, perhaps proud humans). The LXX returns to the theme of angelic mocking and specifies the creature’s domain: “all in the waters.”
Both texts agree on the fundamental point: among earthly creatures, Leviathan has no equal. It is supreme in its realm.
What the Translators Knew
Here’s what becomes clear when we examine the LXX translation of Job 41:
The translators took it literally. They didn’t treat this as purely poetic metaphor. They chose vocabulary— δράκων (dragon), ἀσπίδες (shields), πυρός (fire) —that would convey to Greek readers exactly what kind of creature this was.
The translators sometimes amplified details. Rather than softening the fire-breathing descriptions, they made them more vivid. Rather than minimizing the creature’s size, they emphasized it (flotillas couldn’t carry its tail skin).
The translators added interpretive information. The references to angels mocking these creatures suggest they either had access to traditions not preserved in the MT or that they were drawing on common knowledge about these creatures that was so well-known it didn’t need to be spelled out in the Hebrew.
The translators were consistent. Throughout Scripture— Job, Psalms, Isaiah —they used δράκων for Leviathan. This wasn’t a one-off dramatic choice. It was their considered judgment about what this creature was.
The translators weren’t embarrassed by dragons. Working in Hellenistic Alexandria, surrounded by Greek mythology full of dragons, they had no reason to be skeptical that such creatures existed. Dragons were part of their worldview. So when the Hebrew text described something that matched those descriptions, they called it what it was.
The Historical Proximity Principle
Here’s something modern readers need to grapple with: the LXX translators were roughly 1,800 years closer to Job’s time than we are. If Job lived around 2000 BC (a reasonable estimate based on the book’s patriarchal setting), and the LXX was translated around 200 BC, that’s an 1,800-year gap.
We’re writing in AD 2025. That means we’re 2,200+ years removed from the LXX translation and 4,000+ years removed from the events described in Job.
Who’s more likely to correctly understand what kind of creature is being described: ancient Jewish scholars working 1,800 years after the fact, or modern skeptics working 4,000 years after the fact?
(Especially when one bears in mind that we live in an age where absolutely everything supernatural is either explained away or assumed to be fiction by the vast majority of those who study history)
The ancients had something we don’t: living memory. Not personal memory, obviously, but cultural memory passed down through generations. They lived in a world where the old stories were still being told by elders, where traditions about the antediluvian world were still preserved, where the idea of creatures we would call “mythological” hadn’t yet been dismissed as impossible.
When these ancient translators read Job 41 and called it a dragon, they weren’t guessing. They weren’t being sensational. They were identifying a creature based on descriptions that matched what their culture still remembered about such creatures.
The Textual Verdict
The textual evidence from comparing MT and LXX in Job 41 is clear:
The ancient translators understood Leviathan to be a dragon-like creature
They translated fire-breathing passages literally and sometimes amplified them
They recognized the creature’s armor-like scales and aquatic nature
They preserved (and in one case added) information connecting these creatures to the angelic realm
They showed no embarrassment about any of this—to them, it was simply reporting what the text said
The LXX translation stands as powerful evidence that in the ancient world, before modern naturalism taught us that such creatures “can’t exist,” people who read Job 41 understood it to be describing an actual creature. And one that matched what every culture calls a dragon.
Coming Up Next
In our examination of the textual evidence, we’ve seen that the ancient translation supports a literal reading of Job 41. But this raises a deeper question: Why do cultures all around the world describe similar creatures?
In Part 3, we’ll explore the dragon traditions of the ancient Near East and beyond, from Babylon to Ugarit, from Egypt to China, from Norse mythology to medieval Europe. We’ll ask: Are these independent inventions of the human imagination, or are they cultural memories of something real?
And we’ll examine what it might mean that the biblical text places these creatures— the tanninim —squarely in God’s creation on Day Five, right alongside the fish and the birds. If Scripture and ancient translators both affirm these creatures’ existence, shouldn’t we at least consider the possibility that they’re describing something that actually lived?
Continue to Part 3: “Dragons Across Cultures: From Babylon to Britain”
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