Psalms 74:14

14. Leviathan A different word in the original from “dragons” in preceding verse, but of similar import. In Isaiah 27:1, it is described as a serpent, crooked and tortuous, but crocodiles often present that form. So Job 26:13. These names are not given according to scientific classification, but generally signify saurian monsters of any kind, and are here used interchangeably. In Psalms 104:26, it evidently means a mammal of the Mediterranean, the whale, which formerly inhabited that sea.

Gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness The Egyptians proper held the crocodile sacred, and worshipped it as a god, hence they never ate its flesh. But others, like the inhabitants of the city of Elephantine, in Upper Egypt, of whom Herodotus speaks, (book ii, sec. 69,) freely ate it. But we may take “people” in the figurative sense of Proverbs 30:25, “The ants are a people not strong,” and apply the term to the wild beasts of the desert. The crushing the head of the crocodile and throwing out the carcass as common food for desert men or beasts, was the contempt which Jehovah inflicted upon its worshippers.