Psalms 104 Footnotes

104:26 Leviathan was the sea creature the Canaanites feared; it was portrayed in myth as a seven-headed dragon (see note on 74:13-14). Here it was described as merely a large animal that God put in the water to frolic. What to the pagans was a terrifying force is to God a plaything. The Bible typically divests the natural world of its “religious” aura, and ascribes such a quality of awe only to the Lord and those persons and articles specifically dedicated to his service. Such a view of the world, so different from that of paganism, was essential for the development of modern science.