Psalm 74:14

Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) Leviathan.—See last note.

And gavest him . . .—The crocodile was eaten by the people of Elephantine (Herod. ii. 69), but there is no allusion here to that custom, nor to the Ichthyophagi mentioned by Agatharchides, nor to the Æthiopians (as in the LXX.). It is the Egyptian corpses thrown up by the Red Sea that are to be devoured (comp. Ezekiel 29:3-5) by the “wild beasts,” called here “people,” as the ants and conies are (Proverbs 30:25-26).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

74:12-17 The church silences her own complaints. What God had done for his people, as their King of old, encouraged them to depend on him. It was the Lord's doing, none besides could do it. This providence was food to faith and hope, to support and encourage in difficulties. The God of Israel is the God of nature. He that is faithful to his covenant about the day and the night, will never cast off those whom he has chosen. We have as much reason to expect affliction, as to expect night and winter. But we have no more reason to despair of the return of comfort, than to despair of day and summer. And in the world above we shall have no more changes.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces - On the meaning of the word "leviathan," see the notes at Job 41:1. The word is used here as descriptive of sea monsters.

And gavest him to be meat - Gavest him for "food."

To the people inhabiting the wilderness - That is, the sea monsters were killed, and, being thrown on shore, were gathered for food. The "inhabitants of the wilderness" or the desert, may refer either to the wild and savage tribes of men that lived on the shores of the sea, and that subsisted mainly on fish, or it may refer to the wild animals of the desert that consumed such sea monsters as they were cast up on the shore. There is no allusion to the Israelites considered as passing through the desert, as if they had fed on these sea monsters. The essential idea is, that these monsters were put to death, or were so removed but of the way as to offer no obstruction to the passage of the Israelites through the sea. It was as if they had been killed. The image is entirely poetic, and there is no necessity for supposing that such a thing literally occurred.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. heads of leviathan—The word is a collective, and so used for many.

the people … wilderness—that is, wild beasts, as conies (Pr 30:25, 26), are called a people. Others take the passages literally, that the sea monsters thrown out on dry land were food for the wandering Arabs.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The heads, i.e. the head; called heads, partly for the greatness of this beast, as that great monster is called beasts, Job 40:20, for the same reason; and partly for the several heads or princes who were and acted under his influence.

Leviathan; Pharaoh.

To the people inhabiting the wilderness, Heb. to the people in or of the desert; either,

1. To the Israelites then in the wilderness, to whom the destruction of Pharaoh and his host was meat, i.e. matter of great support and refreshment. Or,

2. To those savage people to whom they were meat, because they lived upon fishes, and might eat those very fishes which had devoured Pharaoh’s host in the bottom of the sea. Or rather,

3. To those ravenous birds and beasts of the desert, which after their manner fed and feasted themselves upon the carcasses of the Egyptians, who were cast upon the sea-shore, Exodus 14:30, which were properly and immediately meat unto them. And when words can be taken properly, we ought to prefer that before the metaphorical sense, as is agreed by interpreters. And this was a very suitable punishment for this proud and insolent people, that they who were so haughty, that they would not own nor submit to the Lord himself, Exodus 5:2, should be devoured by these contemptible creatures, which was a great reproach, 1 Samuel 17:44,46, and oft threatened by God as a grievous curse, as Deu 28:26 Jeremiah 7:33 16:4, &c. Neither let any think it strange that the name of

people is given to these creatures, for it is given to conies, grasshoppers, pismires, &c., both in Scripture, as Proverbs 30:25,26 Joe 1:6, and in Homer, and other ancient profane writers. Nay, here is an elegancy in the expression; for these creatures are significantly called the people of the wilderness, because they are the only people that inhabited it, this being a wilderness wherein was no man, as is said, Job 38:26.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thou breakest the heads of leviathan in pieces,.... A large fish, generally thought to be the whale, by some the crocodile, described in Job 41:1 to which the king of Egypt or Babylon is compared, Isaiah 27:1 and so the Romish antichrist in one of his characters is represented as a sea beast with many heads, which will all be broken in pieces in due time, Revelation 13:1, as here is one "leviathan" with heads in the plural number. Aben Ezra thinks the word is wanting, and may be supplied thus, "thou hast broken the heads of every leviathan"; it may be interpreted as before of Pharaoh and his chief men; so the Targum,

"thou hast broken the heads of the mighty men of Pharaoh:''

and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness; either to the wild beasts, called "tziim", the word here used, Isaiah 13:21 and may be called a people, as the ants and coneys are, Proverbs 30:25, to whom the dead bodies of Pharaoh and his host, drowned in the Red sea, were given for food, when they were cast upon the shore, where the Israelites saw them dead, Exodus 14:28, or to the "Ichthyophagy", a sort of people that dwelt by the Red sea, and lived on fishes; and so the Egyptians became their food, they living upon the fish which devoured their bodies, at least some of them: the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions, render it, "to the people", the Ethiopians; who, it seems, living upon the borders of Egypt, took this opportunity, when Pharaoh and his host were drowned, and seized upon their country; but others refer it to the people of Israel themselves, as the Targum,

"thou hast given them for destruction to the people of the house of Israel, and their bodies to the dragons;''

and so Jarchi,

"thou hast given his mammon or riches to the people of Israel, to feed their companies and armies;''

and Kimchi interprets it of the spoil of the sea which the Israelites took from them; and they may be truly called the people inhabiting the wilderness, since they were in one forty years; so the Romish "leviathan", or antichristian whore, will be given to the Christian kings, who will hate her, eat her flesh, and burn her with fire; and to the Christian church, which now is in the wilderness, where it is nourished for a time and times, and half a time.

Geneva Study Bible

Thou brakest the heads of {k} leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be {l} meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

(k) Which was a great monster of the sea, or whale, meaning Pharaoh.

(l) His destruction rejoiced them as meat refreshes the body.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. Thou brakest &c. Thou didst crush … thou didst give him &c. The dead bodies of the Egyptians were cast up on the shore (Exodus 14:30) to be devoured by the wild beasts of the desert. Cp. Ezekiel 29:3-5. For ‘people’ applied to animals cp. Proverbs 30:25-26.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces. Here the metaphor is only slightly varied, leviathan, "the crocodile," being substituted for tannim, "the dragon," or "sea monster," as the representative of the might of Egypt. And gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. The corpses of the Egyptians thrown up upon the Red Sea shores (Exodus 14:30) are certainly the "meat" intended. Whether the "people of dwellers in the wilderness" are cannibal tribes, or jackals and hyenas, is perhaps doubtful. Psalm 74:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

With this prayer for the destruction of the enemies by God's interposition closes the first half of the Psalm, which has for its subject-matter the crying contradiction between the present state of things and God's relationship to Israel. The poet now draws comfort by looking back into the time when God as Israel's King unfolded the rich fulness of His salvation everywhere upon the earth, where Israel's existence was imperilled. בּקרב הארץ, not only within the circumference of the Holy Land, but, e.g., also within that of Egypt (Exodus 8:18-22). The poet has Egypt directly in his mind, for there now follows first of all a glance at the historical (Psalm 74:13-15), and then at the natural displays of God's power (Psalm 74:16, Psalm 74:17). Hengstenberg is of opinion that Psalm 74:13-15 also are to be understood in the latter sense, and appeals to Job 26:11-13. But just as Isaiah (Isaiah 51:9, cf. Psalm 27:1) transfers these emblems of the omnipotence of God in the natural world to His proofs of power in connection with the history of redemption which were exhibited in the case of a worldly power, so does the poet here also in Psalm 74:13-15. The תּנּיּן (the extended saurian) is in Isaiah, as in Ezekiel (התּנּים, Psalm 29:3; Psalm 32:2), an emblem of Pharaoh and of his kingdom; in like manner here the leviathan is the proper natural wonder of Egypt. As a water-snake or a crocodile, when it comes up with its head above the water, is killed by a powerful stroke, did God break the heads of the Egyptians, so that the sea cast up their dead bodies (Exodus 14:30). The ציּים, the dwellers in the steppe, to whom these became food, are not the Aethiopians (lxx, Jerome), or rather the Ichthyophagi (Bocahrt, Hengstenberg), who according to Agatharcides fed ἐκ τῶν ἐκριπτομένων εἰς τὴν χέρσον κητῶν, but were no cannibals, but the wild beasts of the desert, which are called עם, as in Proverbs 30:25. the ants and the rock-badgers. לציים is a permutative of the notion לעם, which was not completed: to a (singular) people, viz., to the wild animals of the steppe. Psalm 74:15 also still refers not to miracles of creation, but to miracles wrought in the course of the history of redemption; Psalm 74:15 refers to the giving of water out of the rock (Psalm 78:15), and Psalm 74:15 to the passage through the Jordan, which was miraculously dried up (הובשׁתּ, as in Joshua 2:10; Joshua 4:23; Joshua 5:1). The object מעין ונחל is intended as referring to the result: so that the water flowed out of the cleft after the manner of a fountain and a brook. נהרות are the several streams of the one Jordan; the attributive genitive איתן describe them as streams having an abundance that does not dry up, streams of perennial fulness. The God of Israel who has thus marvellously made Himself known in history is, however, the Creator and Lord of all created things. Day and night and the stars alike are His creatures. In close connection with the night, which is mentioned second, the moon, the מאור of the night, precedes the sun; cf. Psalm 8:4, where כּונן is the same as הכין in this passage. It is an error to render thus: bodies of light, and more particularly the sun; which would have made one expect מאורות before the specializing Waw. גּבוּלות are not merely the bounds of the land towards the sea, Jeremiah 5:22, but, according to Deuteronomy 32:8; Acts 17:26, even the boundaries of the land in themselves, that is to say, the natural boundaries of the inland country. קיץ וחרף are the two halves of the year: summer including spring (אביב), which begins in Nisan, the spring-month, about the time of the vernal equinox, and autumn including winter (צתו), after the termination of which the strictly spring vegetation begins (Sol 2:11). The seasons are personified, and are called God's formations or works, as it were the angels of summer and of winter.