Leviathan
A sea creature no one can catch, described at more length than any other animal in the Bible.
God spends a whole chapter of Job on Leviathan, and the description is not restrained: rows of scales shut up tight as a seal, a back no harpoon troubles, smoke from the nostrils, flame from the mouth, and a wake left boiling behind it. Elsewhere it is the thing whose heads God crushed, and a creature made to play in the sea. Readings run from the crocodile through the whale to a mythic chaos-monster the surrounding cultures also knew, and the text supports the argument rather than settling it.
Disputed. Proposals include the crocodile, the whale, and a chaos-dragon drawn from the imagery of neighbouring cultures. Job 41 describes it in terms no living animal satisfies, which is part of why the question stays open.
Where it appears
See also
- Behemoth — Described in the chapter before