“Through You we repel our foes; through Your name we trample our enemies” (Ps 44:5, BSB).
Looking closer at this massive monster, the Lord gives Job, and the rest of us, a lesson in Leviathan’s anatomy (Job 41:12-24). God says he will not “conceal” or be uncommunicative about “his limbs, his mighty power, or his graceful proportions” (v 12). Here we must pause to remind ourselves that metaphorical language is still true language. When Christ is called the Door, while it does not mean He is made of wood, it certainly DOES mean He is the only entrance to a relationship with God. Satan is a superhuman spirit being, but describing him in physical terms doesn’t mean these characteristics are not real. They aren’t literal, but they are actual, perhaps in an even more horrifying sense. Some of the Dragon’s cohorts are “reserved in everlasting chains under darkness” (Jude 1:6). Are the chains made of iron? Of course not—what good would such chains be in restraining spirits? But are they really bound by something accomplishing the purpose of chains? Yes, they are. So the Lord’s description will have a one-to-one correspondence between the described physical characteristics and the very real non-physical features of this ruthless foe. “His limbs”? Satan was well put together by God Himself, not as a devil but as an angel. Now he is called “leviathan that crooked serpent” (Isa 27:1, KJV), or “Leviathan that twisted serpent” (NKJV). Oh, how twisted and crooked he is! And while he lost his position in his rebellion against God, he did not lose “his mighty power.” As to “his graceful proportions,” make no mistake about how attractive he can be, still often appearing as “an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14). Yet we delight in the truth that “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 Jn 4:4). Amen to that!