Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 74:14
Thou didst break the heads of leviathan in pieces, [and] gavest him [to be] meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
14. Thou brakest &c. Thou didst crush thou didst give him &c. The dead bodies of the Egyptians were cast up on the shore (Exo 14:30) to be devoured by the wild beasts of the desert. Cp. Eze 29:3-5. For ‘people’ applied to animals cp. Pro 30:25-26.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
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.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 74:14
Thou brakest the heads Of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Leviathan
We cannot certainly tell what animal is meant by leviathan, but whatever be intended, it is here used to represent Pharaoh with all his policy and power. Who were the people inhabiting the wilderness?
I. The birds and beasts of the desert. The carcases of the Egyptians became their prey.
II. The Jews themselves. For literally, Pharaoh and his hosts became meat for them by the spoils they took from them. And morally, because they gained from the event food for their faith, gratitude, and hope.
III. Christians to-day. For they are such a people: the world is a wilderness to them, not their rest. And for them many leviathans have been destroyed. Satans power: the curse and condemnation of our natural state. And the remembrance will feed our humility, gratitude and trust. And there have been providential interpositions also. Take note of these things. (W. Jay.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 14. The heads of leviathan] Leviathan might be intended here as a personification of the Egyptian government; and its heads, Pharaoh and his chief captains.
To the people inhabiting the wilderness.] Probably meaning the birds and beasts of prey. These were the people of the wilderness, which fed on the dead bodies of the Egyptians, which the tides had cast ashore. The Vulgate, Septuagint, AEthiopic, and Arabic read, “Thou hast given him for meat to the Ethiopians,” or Abyssinians.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
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 Pharaohs 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, Exo 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, Exo 5:2, should be devoured by these contemptible creatures, which was a great reproach, 1Sa 17:44,46, and oft threatened by God as a grievous curse, as Deu 28:26; Jer 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 Pro 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.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14. heads of leviathanTheword is a collective, and so used for many.
the people . . .wildernessthat is, wild beasts, as conies (Pro 30:25;Pro 30:26), are called a people.Others take the passages literally, that the sea monsters thrown outon dry land were food for the wandering Arabs.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole 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, Isa 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, Re 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,
Isa 13:21 and may be called a people, as the ants and coneys are,
Pr 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, Ex 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.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(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 thiopians (as in the LXX.). It is the Egyptian corpses thrown up by the Red Sea that are to be devoured (comp. Eze. 29:3-5) by the wild beasts, called here people, as the ants and conies are (Pro. 30:25-26).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
14. Leviathan A different word in the original from “dragons” in preceding verse, but of similar import. In Isa 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 Psa 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 Pro 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.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 74:14 Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, [and] gavest him [to be] meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Ver. 14. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan ] i.e. Of Pharaoh himself. See Isa 26:1 Eze 29:3 . Egypt is situated between two seas; and a great part of it overflowed by the river Nile. Pharaoh, therefore, is fitly compared to the master fish, and his captains to crocodiles.
And gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
people inhabiting = inhabitants: i.e. the wild beasts.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 74:14-15
Psa 74:14-15
“Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces;
Thou gavest him to be food to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Thou didst cleave fountain and flood:
Thou driedst up mighty rivers.”
We reject as irresponsible the claims of certain radicals that we have in this passage references to, “Primitive creation mythology, the Akkadian creation myth, and to the mythical conflict between Marduk and Tiamat.” It may be freely admitted, of course, that some of the terminology here was also used in some of the ancient myths referred to; but as Kidner expressed it, “What Baal had done in the realm of myth, God had actually done in the realm of history, and had done it for his people, ‘working salvation’ (Psa 74:12). What these verses survey is the Exodus and the crossing of the Jordan.
Rhodes reminds us that, “The Babylonians and Canaanites believed their myths to be true, but our psalmist did not. He used some of their language in referring to the Lord in order to state symbolically his power as the one true God and Creator.
As Dummelow pointed out, “The terms ‘sea-monsters’ and ‘Leviathan’ (or crocodile) are simply figures of speech for Egypt.
“Food to the people inhabiting the wilderness” (Psa 74:14). This does not mean that Israel fed, literally, upon the bodies of Pharaoh’s army washed ashore, but that Israel was armed with the weapons of the destroyed enemy. The dead bodies no doubt became the food of wild birds and beasts. Dummelow stated that “the people” here refers to the wild animals.
“Thou driedst up mighty rivers” (Psa 74:15). The plural is evidently used here for emphasis. Certainly, the primary reference is to Israel’s crossing the Jordan at flood stage, and doing so upon dry land!
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 74:14. The flesh of the leviathan would not be the most desirable of food. Yet it might not be too bad for people inhabiting the wilderness where one could not be very exacting in his diet. But the main point of David was the fact that this animal, usually too strong to be captured by man (Job 41:1), was overcome by the Lord and thrown over for the use of the natives nearby.
Psa 74:15. The preceding verse referred to the crossing over the Red Sea. This one occurred at the crossing of the Jordan. By stopping the flow of the river it was equivalent to having cleaved or demolished the fountain supplying the flood (Jordan).
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
leviathan: Psa 104:25, Psa 104:26, Job 3:8, *marg. Job 41:1-34, Isa 27:1, Rev 20:2
meat: Psa 72:9, Exo 12:35, Exo 12:36, Exo 14:30, Num 14:9
Reciprocal: Exo 15:10 – blow Job 26:13 – the crooked serpent Psa 44:19 – in the Psa 106:21 – which Psa 148:7 – ye dragons Isa 43:16 – maketh Isa 51:9 – put Eze 29:3 – the great Eze 29:5 – I have Eze 32:2 – and thou art as Eze 32:4 – General Hab 3:13 – thou woundedst
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
74:14 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.