Leviathan

A near-mythical sea creature mentioned about half a dozen times in mostly poetic passages in the Bible (see the texts below). We know next to nothing about it since all the references to them are incidental and there are no extra-biblical references to them that would help us identify what it may have been. Some Christians identify the leviathans with dinosaurs — the identification is pure speculation with little probability of being right. The word is a straight-forward transliteration of the Hebrew liveyatan.

Job 3:8:
May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.

Job 41:14:
Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope?

Psm 74:14:
It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him as food to the creatures of the desert.

Psm 104:26:
There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

Isa 27:1:
In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.

Leviathan is the title of a book of political philosophy by Thomas Hobbes published in 1651 advocating monarchical absolutism.

Hobbes' argument is that all humans lived in a constant state of chaos, fear and insecurity. Individuals would therefore be glad to enter into an agreement to surrender their individual powers to a single authority who would guarantee to keep them safe and their properties secure.