Mark Tabata’s Weekday Devotionals
Friday August 21 2026
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Job 26:12-13-He stirs up the sea with His power, And by His understanding He breaks up the storm. 13 By His Spirit He adorned the heavens; His hand pierced the fleeing serpent.
Throughout the Book of Job, we see several references to Satan that often go unnoticed because we do not usually study the Bible through the lens of Jewish culture from the Old Testament era. We see several examples right here in this passage, and when we break it down, we learn many fascinating things.
Let’s study.
Job here is speaking to his three friends (Bildad, Zohar, and Eliphaz). They have been trying to convince him that the reason for his suffering is that God is punishing the patriarch for some terrible hidden sin. However, they are incorrect! Sometimes people suffer in this life and it is not Divine punishment for sin (cf. John 9:1-4). However, Job is convinced that God is behind these vicious attacks upon him, and he doesn’t understand why it is happening.
In this passage, Job is discussing God’s power over creation. Job 26:5-11 describes the events which occur before Genesis 1:2-31, in the time frame between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. This corresponds with another passage which again elaborates on God’s operations in the universe before the events of Genesis 1:2.
Psalm 74:13-17-You divided the sea by Your strength; You broke the heads of the sea serpents in the waters. 14 You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces, And gave him as food to the people inhabiting the wilderness. 15 You broke open the fountain and the flood; You dried up mighty rivers. 16 The day is Yours, the night also is Yours; You have prepared the light and the sun. 17 You have set all the borders of the earth; You have made summer and winter.
Writing of this passage, Gilbert and Peck hone in on how these events clearly take place between Genesis 1:1 and 2.
Psalm 74 is a bit different. We learn that God is from old, working salvation in the midst of the earth (which again, at the beginning would have been only water). Then we learn God divides the seas (which, in Genesis, occurs in Genesis 1:6) and breaks the heads of the sea monsters, along with crushing the heads of Leviathan. Later, we learn that God establishes the heavenly lights and the sun (which, in Genesis, doesn’t occur until the fourth day, described in Genesis 1:14–19). It is generally believed among biblical scholars that Psalm 74 and Genesis 1 are likely polemics of the Baal Cycle. That is to say, they are attempts to take credit away from Baal for subduing chaos (Leviathan) and giving proper credit to YHWH for this and for creation itself.…Therefore, what we have in Genesis 1 and Psalm 74 is not a scientific description of how everything was created, but a symbolic polemic describing who gets the credit for creating everything. According to the Bible, it’s not Baal. It’s not Marduk. It is YHWH.…We see this same sort of thing in Psalm 89:9–11, which reads: You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them. You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it, you have founded them. (ESV) We also see this idea repeated as an apocalyptic idea in Isaiah 27:1, which reads: In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. (ESV) In Psalm 89, “Rahab” is a name for Egypt, but is also equated with the sea beast Leviathan. In Isaiah 27, we read of a time in the future when chaos is not simply subdued, but is done away with forever.…The idea coming out of comparing Psalm 74 with Genesis 1 is, by the time the actual creation starts, Leviathan/ chaos is already subdued. This would seem to indicate in the text, at least in the mind of the writers of these passages, that a lot more is going on with Genesis 1: 1–3 than what we are typically taught in Sunday school. We learn in the very first verse that God created the heavens and the earth. However, what was that process like? What were the conditions? How long did it take? We are not told specifically, but we are given clues if we think of this as a polemic on ancient Canaanite religion. Whether taken as literal or symbolic, the texts indicate a Creation story unlike anything we are ever taught in the Church, but one biblical scholars are very familiar with. The sea represents chaos, yet as we see in Genesis 1: 2, chaos is already subdued by the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters. The battle is over before it really began. Derek P. Gilbert & Josh Peck, The Day the Earth Stands Still: Unmasking the Old Gods Behind ETs, UFOs, and the Official Disclosure Movement, 264-269 (Kindle Edition): Crane, MO: Defender Publishing)
Again, notice that in this passage in Psalm 74, God is said to have broken the “heads of the sea serpents in the waters,” and “the heads of Leviathan in pieces.” This is connected with the time God “broke open the fountain and the flood,” when He “dried up mighty rivers.” It is specifically at the time when “the day is Yours, the night also,” and when God “prepared the light and the sun,” and when He “set all the borders of the earth” and made “summer and winter.” These refer to the events of Genesis 1:2-31. Many of the Jews believe that there was a “gap” of time between Genesis 1:1 and 2, based partially on these events that are described in these passages.
Though it was seldom a point of discussion, the concept of a gap was common among ancient Hebrew rabbis. Akiba ben Joseph, who was executed by the Romans in 135 AD, left a clear witness in what would become known as the Mishna. One of Akiba’s disciples, Simeon ben Jochai, wrote The Book of Light, or Zohar. His commentary on Genesis 2: 4–6 expresses the common view held during the lifetime of the apostles and into the second century. “These are the generations of heaven and earth… Now wherever there is written the word ‘these’ () the previous words are put aside. And these are the generations of the destruction which is signified in verse 2 of chapter 1. The earth was Tohu and Bohu. These indeed are the worlds of which it is said that the blessed God created them and destroyed them, and, on that account, the earth was desolate and empty.” This ancient writer who was contemporaneous with the early church had no agenda other than interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures, a living language in his day. The text itself forces the conclusion that the heaven (not heavens) and earth were created at some point prior to Genesis 1: 3 and became “empty and desolate” (without form and void) through an act of judgment…Arthur C. Custance (MA in Hebrew and Greek and PhD in biblical archeology and anthropology) was a Canadian anthropologist, scientist, and author specializing in science and Christianity. In 1970 he privately published Without Form and Void. “We are in no position at present to determine precisely how the Jewish commentators made the discovery, but their early literature (the Midrash for example) reveals that they had some intimation of an early pre-Adamic catastrophe affecting the whole earth. Similarly, clear evidence appears in the oldest extant Version of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Targum of Onkelos) and some intimation may be seen in the “punctuation marks” of the Masoretic text of Genesis, Chapter One.” (p. 2–3) The Jewish Midrash, originating after the Babylonian captivity, over 500 years before Christ, contains early interpretations and commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. It was the basis of rabbinical teaching at the time of Christ. A copy of it was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, predating the New Testament. There are other preserved copies dating from the second century AD, just decades after the apostles. The Midrash is a highly respected exegesis of the Hebrew Bible from various perspectives by many writers and traditions, providing us with a history of their understanding of the text. How could modern writers dare suggest that Gap Creationism is a new idea designed to accommodate modern evolutionary thinking when we have clear records of its antiquity? (Michael Pearl, The Gap Fact and Out-of-Whack Creation Scientism, 13-14 (Kindle Edition): NGJ Ministries)
During that time (between Genesis 1:1 and 2) God fought against Leviathan and defeated him. In the passage before us, Job seems to be referring to those events. Indeed, he further here describes God defeating “the proud.” That Hebrew phrase is the word Rahab, which (as we learn from other Scriptures and texts outside of the Bible) was the name of a pagan goddess who is often identified with Leviathan.
RAHAB ר ה. I. Rahab is one of the names in the OT of the chaos monster(s) (cf. also →Leviathan, →Tannin, Tehom [→Tiamat], and Yam). Although there are in the neighbouring cultures many parallels to this phenomenon of chaos monsters, the name Rahab seems to have no cognates. The only exception is in an Akkadian text about a chaos monster usually called Labbu. The first syllable in this name is written with the sign kal which can be read as lab as well as reb; so the reading Rebbu (<*reb-bu) is possible too (Lambert 1986:55 n.1). The Hebrew name is probably related to Heb rhb, ‘assail’, ‘press’, and Akk raʾābu(m), ‘tremble (with fear or rage)’ and especially with its derivate rūbu, ‘overflow’, because this is not only said of rage but also of water, whereas Rahab is usually related to the →sea. It occurs as a divine name in Isa 51:9; Ps 89:11; Job 9:13; 26:12; and Sir 43:25; and as a reference to Egypt in Isa 30:7 and Ps 87:4. The plural rĕhābîm in Ps 40:5 can be interpreted as a reference to related →demons. II. The reference to Rahab in the OT should be read against the background of ancient Near Eastern mythology describing creation as based on victory over the powers of chaos, viz. the primordial oceans. These powers are represented as monsters. The best known example is the Babylonian myth Enūma eliš describing →Marduk’s creation of the kosmos by defeating the chaos monster Tiamat with her helpers. In the Ugaritic myth of →Baal there are references to a primordial battle between Baal or his consort Anat against the god of the Sea Yam and other chaos monsters (KTU 1.2 iv; 1.3 iii; 1.5 i). The same myth tells us that this battle did not stop with the creation of the world: the powers of chaos remain a threat which has to be confronted again and again. A ritual text (KTU 1.82) describes how these forces can afflict human life and how they can be exorcized. A clear picture of such a watery chaos monster can be found on an Assyrian cylinder seal (Keel 1977:43, pl.48) which shows a →dragon with a body of waves. The dragon is attacked by a warrior with two helpers. On a Hittite cylinder seal (ANEP 670 and Keel 1977:44, pl.50) we see two gods fighting a dragon pictured as waves curling over. III. In the OT texts relating Rahab to the sea its original character of chaos monster is preserved. They also point to a conception of a battle between →Yahweh and →chaos preceding the creation of →heaven and →earth. Job 26 describes the steadfast order of the universe preserved by God after having struck down Rahab (cf. also Ps 89:7–13). Job 9:13 mentions Rahab’s helpers. This has a parallel in the army of monsters siding with Tiamat according to Enūma eliš I 125ff and also in ‘the Big Ones’, monsters supporting the sea god Yam, the adversary of Baal and Anat in KTU2 1.3 iii:38ff. And the ritual text KTU 1.109:21 mentions helper-gods among a number of gods residing in the netherworld (TUAT II/3, 317). (K. Spronk, “Rahab,” in Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, edited by 2nd extensively rev. ed., 684–686 (Logos Edition): Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans)
Both are ancient names for the being that we know as Satan.
What is especially fascinating is the description of this “serpent” as “fleeting.” The word in Hebrew has reference to something which is slippery and able to escape, then reappear later. Whereas the word used here in the Greek Old Testament refers specifically to this creature being openly rebellious and opposed to God. These are both, of course, appropriate qualifiers of the being that we know as Satan. Yet in the end, God will triumph fully over Satan. While there are times that the fleeting serpent has continued in his wicked rebellion, the Second Coming of Christ will put an end to all of his scheming and attacks. We may, like Job, place our faith in the goodness and power of God to overcome evil in His time.
We praise You Lord and we thank You. Amen.