salted seamonster
tall tales big guy lizard killer
AND I ASKED THAT ANGEL TO SHOW ME THE POWER OF THOSE MONSTERS, HOW THEY WERE SEPARATED ON ONE DAY, AND THROWN, ONE INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA AND THE OTHER ON TO THE DRY GROUND OF THE DESERT.
AND HE SAID TO ME: “SON OF MAN, YOU HERE WISH TO KNOW WHAT IS SECRET.”
(Book of Enoch)
PART III: in which I dust off my Bible & Zohar
The primordial bad blood between sky and sea (as personified in the battle against a seamonster) gradually petered out over the centuries and ended with a whimper not a bang. By the time we hear mention of the seamonster Leviathan in the Old Testament, it’s almost always in the past tense – God slew Leviathan. It isn’t mentioned as an ongoing battle between God (certainly a sky-god) and a sea-god; indeed there is no sea-god in the Bible at all. The sky-god has claimed victory.
Which, as I’ll posit later, is a complex position for a god.
What exactly goes down between Leviathan and the Lord is extremely muddled and told in a variety of ways, which seems to suggest that there may be a bit of bluffing on the part of the Lord’s scribes.
A common theme in the scriptures is that, initially, God made two great monsters but feared they would reproduce and swarm the earth with their wicked offspring. In one telling, there are two seabeast Leviathans, male and female (the ‘elusive serpent’ and the ‘twisting serpent’) – in some passages, both are slain; in others, just the female.
In another telling, the two monsters are separated so that they shall never meet and breed: Behemoth (the male monster) is relegated to the land and Leviathan (the female monster) is tossed into the sea.
And on that day two monsters will be separated from one another, a female monster whose name is Leviathan, to dwell in the depths of the sea, above the springs of the waters.
(Job 3:8)And the name of the male is Behemoth who occupies with his breast an immense desert named Dendayn on the east of the Garden where the chosen and the righteous dwell.
(Job 40:15)
When God slew Leviathan, did he let all that good meat go to waste? Certainly not. There are two different takes on who exactly he donates it to. In Psalms, he feeds it to the ‘creatures of the desert’ (snakes and lizards? Kind of sick, considering Leviathan is a reptile too, but maybe that’s the idea?):
It was you who split open the sea by your power;
you broke the heads of the monster in the waters.
It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan
and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert. (Psalms 74:13-14)
In the Zohar (Kabbalistic exegesis of the Tanakh, or Old Testament) and elsewhere, God castrates the male Leviathan and kills & salts the female Leviathan to save for The Righteous to eat on Judgment Day.
This is perhaps my favorite passage in any book about Leviathan and the most mysterious:
‘God created the great sea serpents’ (Genesis 1:20)—Leviathan and his mate.
And every soul of the living being, who glides—the soul of that living being gliding in all four directions of the world. Who is She? Night.’
Commentary: Rav Yehudah said, ‘Everything that the blessed Holy One created in His world, He created male and female. Even Leviathan the elusive serpent and Leviathan the twisting serpent He created male and female, and if they mated with another, they would destroy the entire world. What did the blessed Holy One do? He castrated the male and killed the female, salting her for the righteous in the world to come, as is written, ‘He will slay the dragon of the sea’ (Isaiah 27:1).
The Zohar 1:34b (13th c.)
What does this mean: And every soul of the living being, who glides—the soul of that living being gliding in all four directions of the world. Who is She? Night.’ I have no idea, but I love it. Interpretations welcome:
Back to ‘salting her for the righteous in the world to come’ — where does God cure his meat? Does he have a shed— in heaven or in some secret location here on earth? Does he assume physical form in order to make jerky or is this something the Holy Spirit does for him (seems difficult for a bird)?
.
PART IV: in which I am so tickled that the Lord salted Leviathan to save for Judgment Day that I had to write a poem
oho god you plan to salt me up & serve me as a snack for the righteous? what grand reward for all their virtue forgo a lifetime of delicious sin and the lord shall give thee monster jerky as if I’ve been tucked in your pantry for millennia waiting to be served with crudité for the big winners of judgment day, as if you knew where I was at all! as if I didn’t still give you nightmares tall tales big guy lizard killer why create me in the first place? to murder me for pleasure? haven’t you enough beasts to hunt? no – I wager you need a good enemy. otherwise: you are no god. you need me but i do not need you for a monster is a monster needs no god almighty .
more in the seamonster series~ part I: a friendly seamonster poem part II: an inventory of seamonsters, in particular the Near East lineage resulting in Leviathan
This reminded me of one of my kids recently asking, "If you catch a mermaid instead of a tuna, can you eat the whole mermaid or just the bottom half?"
Yes, yes, but did they taste like chicken?