“Who is leviathan, and what does Psalm 74:14 mean?”

“Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest
him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.” (Psalm 74:14)

Elsewhere, God vows to punish “leviathan that crooked serpent” and thereby “slay the dragon” (Isa. 27:1). So leviathan there is “the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil” (Rev. 20:2).

Breaking his heads is an idiom that describes what God did to Satan when He defeated the devil’s army at the Red Sea (Psa. 74:13). Giving him “to be meat to the people in the wilderness” is what God did later to Satan’s giants in Canaan. Joshua told the Jews in the wilderness not to fear them, “for they are bread for us” (Num. 14:9), that is, “We’ll eat them alive!”

Tribulation Jews will hide from the beast in the wilderness (Rev. 12:6,14), and Isaiah 27:1 will assure them that the Lord will defeat him, and he and his host will be meat for them at Armageddon.

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

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