What covenant did God make with leviathan? Job41:4

Question

Job 41:4

Will he make a covenant with thee? Wilt thou take him for a servant for ever?

Answer 1

The sense of Job 41:4 is NOT God making a covenant with Leviathan, but asking the rhetorical question (with an implied "NO"), "Will he (Leviathan) make a covenant with you (= Job).

That is, the creature is so great that he cannot be tamed, cannot be used as a work animal and cannot be captured (see V1-3).

This is part of the general flow of God's argument with Job - Job does not know many things and is thus ignorant of much. Therefore, since created all these things, including Leviathan, Job ought not to tell God anything.

Barnes comments on this verse:

Will he make a covenant with thee? - That is, will he submit himself to thee, and enter into a compact to serve thee? Such a compact was made by those who agreed to serve another; and the idea here is, that the animal here referred to could not be reduced to such service - that is, could not be tamed.

Wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? - Canst thou so subdue him that he will be a perpetual slave? The meaning of all this is, that he was an untamable animal, and could not be reduced, as many others could, to domestic use.

Answer 2

The verse being asked about poses the question of a covenant being made, and whether Leviathan will become a perpetual servant. "What covenant?" is asked about, assuming that a covenant was made, and also assuming that the "who" who made that covenant with Leviathan was God. Yes - 'what' and 'who' indeed!

To answer I will quote from a book written about the book of Job in relation to science by a professor of physics. He has found the book of Job immensely helpful in understanding how God deals with humans, and non-humans, in his created world.

With indecent brevity I will summarize the main (relevant) point he makes about Job's questions and the surprising way God finally responds, leading up to the second of God's discourses that silences Job into repentance - chapters 40 and 41.

Gradually, the tussle between Job's anguished physical pain and mental torment, and his supposed comforters' responses, leads to exposing the real problem that prevents all of them understanding how God sees everything. They have assumed that 'good' people are blessed by God and prosper, while the wicked will suffer and be punished. In God's first discourse (chapters 38 and 39), he gets them thinking about suffering in context of human relationships with the physical world. He does that with a series of poetic questions, starting with asking who darkens counsel by words without knowledge. He takes them back to Creation, from that of the stars to amazing details about animals and grasshoppers.

Many people think God never dealt with Job's complaints and suffering. Oh yes he did, by getting him to stop thinking about himself, and taking on board God's awesome power in creation. This brings us to God's second list of questions and his discourse about Creation, with a great deal said about Leviathan, as in the whole of Job chapter 41

Job 41:8 warns Job about condemning God that he might be righteous. It's God's righteousness, power and authority over Creation that will answer the question of suffering. This means that the one word asked about in verse 4, regarding a 'covenant', can only be understood in context of the entire chapter. And what is that context?

"After a short and self-abasing acknowledgement from Job, a second discourse follows (chapters 40 and 41). It is in some ways even more remarkable, and certainly stranger, than the first, singing in exquisitely detailed praise the power of two monstrous creatures, the Behemoth and Leviathan...

One by one, the forces of nature invoked by the disputants throughout the circling debates are summoned once again, but framed in a new way. The first five 'storylines for nature' we have heard on different lips are passed aside by [God's] questioning, which instead urges its listeners to think about another way of understanding. So the challenge (38:34,35) "Can you lift your voice to the clouds, and make a flood of waters answer you? Can you send lightning bolts on their way, and have them report to you, 'Ready!'?...

Nature has its freedom, its 'way' and its contained and creative chaos. Just as it is the 'wrong sort of question' today to demand a predictive and ordered mathematical formula for the evolution of a chaotic dynamical system, so a world of obedient and ordered clouds was for Job 'the wrong sort of cosmos' to hope for. Faith & Wisdom in Science, Tom McLeish, pp.109 & 144-145, Oxford University Press, 2015 reprint

Bear with me, please, for a vital link must be made between that last quote about the clouds, and the next one about Leviathan and any supposed covenant.

"The climax of the total decentralisation of Job from his universe within the Lord's answer is the celebration of the two giant creatures Behemoth and Leviathan...

the final voice asks the great questions about nature not purely to rouse into self-awareness Job's, or our own, lack of understanding, but as an invitation towards transforming it in encounter with wisdom. The possibility of a new relationship with the physical world is laid before Job that leaves behind the irresponsibly polarised positions to which he and his friends have been clinging.

...Fourth, it speaks of the fundamental significance and importance of the physical structure and workings of nature. They are not sideshows or an optional hobby for the socially challenged. Our relation of perception, knowledge and understanding is at the centre of our humanity. It may well be at the centre of our experience of pain - the failure to acquire wisdom in working with nature hurts both the world and ourselves... The book of Job even talks of the direction of human relationships with creation in terms of a covenant. It offers us the loftiest of all biblical perspectives on the programme we have called the 'love of wisdom of natural things'." (Ibid. pp.145-148)

Answer 3

Let us begin with the presumption that the OP is correct that in this verse God affirms that He has a covenant with Leviathan (although this is debatable). The idea is not implausible because in the Book of Job God takes responsibility for "natural evil." Leviathan is his creation, and God allows this magnificent, awesome beast to live as the fearsome "king over all who are proud," while Leviathan, like all creatures of God, must abide by natural law.

Thus God praises Leviathan saying of him:

“I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs, its strength and its graceful form. 13 Who can strip off its outer coat? Who can penetrate its double coat of armor? 14 Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth?... 33 Nothing on earth is its equal— a creature without fear. 34 It looks down on all that are haughty; it is king over all that are proud.”

Leviathan is perhaps God's most awesome creature except for human beings. God has the same covenant with this beast as he does with other animals (mythical or not). But this is not a formal agreement between two parties that both exercise free agency as the term normally implies. It is the covenant of life, in which Leviathan exercises tremendous power based on natural law. This is not a matter of authority, however, only of magnificent brute strength.

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Note: in affirming the above, I am also aware that other biblical scriptures present a different view of God's relationship with Leviathan. For example, in Psalm 74:13-14, the beast is portrayed as God's enemy, whom He has slain:

It was you (God) 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.

But in the Book of Job, God is Leviathan's creator, not his enemy or his slayer.

Answer 4

Job 41:4 NIV

Will it make an agreement with you (Job) for you to take it as your slave for life?

First and foremost, Job 41:4 does not pertain to an agreement (covenant) between Leviathan and God. It presents God's inquiry to Leviathan, asking whether it would willingly enter into a servitude arrangement with Job.

Regarding to the term 'covenant', unlike a typical 'agreement' which involves two or more parties, a 'covenant' can be unilateral, takes the form of a promise or an offer extended by God only to a chosen individual, such as Abraham and David.

While there is no explicit covenant mentioned between God and Leviathan, we may consider a different perspective. If we were to envision a covenant by God with Leviathan, it might involve permission of its existence. It is because God's sovereignty extends to the survival and purpose of all His creations, including Leviathan.