ABSTRACT
Leviathan is a primeval sea monster—a giant fish, crocodile, or whale—of Hebrew folklore mentioned in five Old Testament poetic passages and described and alluded to in others and also in the Apocrypha. Scholars have attempted to reconstruct the Leviathan myth by drawing upon parallels within similar myths of the ancient Near East. The Motif-Index cross-references under Leviathan "Giant Fish", "Giant Whale", and Jonah. As the sea monster of chaos, Leviathan sparked the imagination of apocalyptic writers as well as later rabbinic writers. In the postbiblical Jewish literature written before the conquest of Palestine by the Arabs, Leviathan takes on some additional meanings in Jewish literature, often with eschatological nuances. Leviathan appears in a tale first in the Midrash of the Ten Commandments but "is copied and retold in other medieval sources," including the story cycle in the Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah, where Leviathan is showed in a positive light.
