On the Presence of Dragons in the Hebrew Bible

Exodus chapter 7 is largely concerned with the various “signs and wonders” that Moses (and sometimes his brother Aaron) used to prod Pharaoh into “letting the people go.” Exodus 7:9 tells us, When Pharaoh says, ‘Show us a sign,’ say to Aaron, ‘Take your rod and throw it down in front of Pharaoh.’ It shall turn into a serpent.¹ The Hebrew word translated here as serpent (other translators render it snake) is: tanin. And that translation certainly makes sense in this context, after all, it’s easy to imagine a rod morphing into a snake.²

However, the word tanin occurs in many other places in Tanakh, and it might be more difficult to understand it as snake in those other places. In fact, it is one of many Hebrew words in the Bible which have no certain translation into English (or other languages, for that matter).

The first time we encounter the word tanin in Tanakh is in the beginning: Genesis 1:21 tells us: “Vayivra Elohim et hataninim hagdolim,” And (on the fifth day) God created the great sea creatures (taninim). It’s the same word, so why not translate this as, “God created the big snakes”? But nary a professional translator feels that is the correct meaning of taninim in this verse. Most of the modern translators offer “great sea monsters,” the King James prefers to render it “whales.” At this point it might be worth noting that biblical Hebrew had no word for whale so the creature which famously swallowed Jonah was a dag gadol, a big fish (Jonah 2:1).

Isaiah Chapter 27:1 gives us an interesting combination of notions for taninim: Bayom hahu yifkod YHWH b’harbo hakashah v’hag’dolah v’hahazakah al livyatan nahash bari’ah v’al livyatan nahash akalaton v’harag et hatanin asher bayam. On that day, the LORD will punish with his powerful sword Leviathan the fleeing Serpent and Leviathan the coiled serpent and slaughtered the sea monsters (or dragons, or serpents) of the sea. Notice again the use of taninim. The name Leviathan would almost certainly have been evocative of Near Eastern creation myths to audiences of ancient Israel. In this verse Leviathan is compared (twice) to some sort of serpent.

A dragon makes another appearance in Isaiah, chapter 51:9, which by most scholarly accounts would make the author different from the First Isaiah of Chapter 27, therefore allowing us to see the attitude of another writer: Uri, Uri livshi-oz z’ro’a YHWH kimei kedem dorot olamim halo at hiy hamahtzevet rahav m’holelet tanin. Arm of the LORD, arise, arise! Arise as in olden days, generations past! Are you not the one (arm) who dismembered Rahav? Did you not pierce the Dragon?

What Do We Mean by Dragon?

As we have now several times encountered a translation of dragon for the Hebrew tanin, we should ask what exactly do we mean by the word dragon? This is, of course, a matter of English rather than Hebrew, but still, we need to understand both sides of the lexical equation. The oldest attested use of the word dragon in English literature dates to ca. 1220 CE in a volume known as Bestiary. The meaning there, and in other usage documented through 1849 is “A huge serpent or snake; a python.”³ Simultaneously with that emphasis on the serpentine, we find a perhaps more familiar definition: “A mythical monster, represented as a huge and terrible reptile, usually combining ophidian and crocodilian structure, with strong claws, like a beast or bird of prey, and a scaly skin; it is generally represented with wings, and sometimes as breathing out fire. The heraldic dragon combines reptilian and mammalian form with the addition of wings.” The OED notes that it is often difficult to determine whether a given usage fits the first or second definition.⁴

As mentioned above, the term dragon is also associated with crocodilians. It is highly likely that biblical Israelites were aware of this creature, one of whose species was commonly found in the Nile River. Nile crocodiles can reach 20’ (5 m) and weigh up to 1 ton (1000 kg). It is not impossible that they would have been aware of the even larger saltwater crocodiles (whose range included the Indian subcontinent). These can reach 23’ (7 m) and weigh 1.5 tons (1500 kg).⁵

Rahav in Isaiah 51:9 is another reference to some sort of sea creature from ancient Canaanite myth; the prophet is calling upon the arm of God to repeat the victories against the sea creatures depicted with names drawn from those Canaanite tales. Rahav also makes an appearance in the Babylonian Talmud, Baba Batra 74b: “Rav Yehudah quoted Rav: At the time that the Holy Blessed One created the world, he said to the ruler of the sea, ‘Open your mouth and swallow the waters of the world.’ He said to him: Master of the World, is it not sufficient that I remain where I belong? At once, he struck and killed him. (This explains) what is said (Job 26:12) By his power he calmed the sea, and by his skill he struck down Rahav.” That page of the Talmud also includes a number of stories related to the taninim of Genesis 1:21.

Across the Books

A psalm names creatures to be vanquished at 74:13: Atah forarta v’ozkha yam shibarta taninim al hamayim. By your strength you split the sea, and smashed the heads of the dragons (sea monsters? serpents?) in the waters. The new JPS(2) translation renders taninim by monsters, KJV and NRSV both choose dragons.

Job 7:12 states: Hayam ani im tanin kiy tasim alay mishmar. Am I the sea or a dragon that you set watch over me? Here we find a different distribution of renderings for tanin than usual. The NJPS, which tends to stay away from dragon, does render it dragon here, and that is also the rendering of the editions of the Revised Standard Version (RSV and NRSV). But the King James, which seems to enjoy translating the term as dragon elsewhere, here renders the word, whale! Meanwhile, other versions such as the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) and the New American Standard Bible (NAS) both prefer “sea monsters.”

Robert Alter has a particularly interesting take on this verse. He translates it, “Am I Yamm or the Sea Beast, that You should put a watch upon me?” He renders tanin as “Sea Beast” (and note the capitalization), and renders yam as Yamm. We have noted several times that all these terms are evocative of ancient Near Eastern creation stories and Alter here signals this by using the Hebrew term to mean one of the names of the god of the sea, known from Ugaritic texts. Notice that as vocalized by the Masoretes, the ha is not the definite article “the” but rather a particle which introduces a question. Still, Alter shies away from dragon, preferring Sea Beast.

Ezekiel mentions tanin in several verses, 29:3 is of particular interest here: daber v’amarta coh amar adonai YHWH hin’ni alekha par’oh melekh mitzrayim hatanim hagadol harovetz b’tokh y’orav asher amar li y’ori v’ani asitini. Say: This is what my LORD God is bringing upon you, Pharaoh King of Egypt: the great dragon (sea creature, sea beast, etc.) who lies (perhaps “lurks”) in the Nile, who declares, “The Nile is mine, because I made it.” The word tanim⁶ here has the usual assortment of translations across the English versions — I chose dragon in agreement with King James as well as the RSV. NJPS renders it “mighty monster.” But perhaps the most interesting take is that of the NJB, which says, “the great crocodile wallowing in his Niles.” Not only does this make sense from the perspective that there actually are crocodiles in the Nile, but they also noted that the Hebrew form of the Nile is plural. And so that gives us yet another rendering into English of tanim, namely, crocodile. But do note that it’s still the same Hebrew word.

Mary K. Wakeman provides some perspective from Ugaritic sources, but there are possibly relevant terms from even more ancient sources.⁷ The word kušû is found in Sumerian, and is loaned from there into Akkadian. There has been a lively scholarly debate about the correct identification of this creature, with Mark E. Cohen pronouncing (in 1973) that the term must mean “turtle” (although I confess it’s hard to conjure images of a “monster” in the form of a turtle!), although conceding that perhaps “crab,” “shark,” or “seal” could be justified. In 2014, Alexandre Loktionov revisited the subject and concluded that the most likely identification is “crocodile” — so we are back to crocodile (at least for kušû) again!

Vocabulary and Culture

Are there any lessons to be learned from this excursion through a particular Hebrew term? One way to look at this phenomenon is from the perspective of the vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible. While biblical Hebrew is capable of collecting synonyms for certain types of objects — consider for example the many types of cultic objects associated with Temple worship — in many other areas the vocabulary is startlingly thin. Biblical Hebrew has two words for the type of vessel that can carry people on water — oniyah and sefinah. But despite the availability of two different words, the author of Jonah uses both for the same vessel (Jonah 1:3, cf. Jonah 1:5). This would be unthinkable in English culture, where sailors might be willing to come to blows over calling a submarine a ship — it is a boat, of course! In case you are curious, the rule of thumb in the Navy is that ships are the larger vessels and boats are the smaller. But as we see in Hebrew, they are all the same. Now, biblical Hebrew does have at least one special term for a type of boat, tevah, which makes its appearance in the tale of Noah and his “ark” (first occurrence at Gen 6:14). That term is repeated throughout the story of Noah (Gen 6 through 9), and then disappears except for a return in Exodus 2, where it is the term of art for the vessel that will transport the infant Moses down the Nile. From these two instances, it appears that biblical Hebrew used the term tevah to indicate a vessel which floated but was unsteered, the closest English equivalent might well be raft. With this, we have completed a survey of the available vocabulary for boats in biblical Israel. Compare that with English, which never saw a word for boat in any language it wouldn’t adopt! How long would it take someone who owns a canoe to correct a person who called it a kayak? Or a catamaran? My point is that vocabulary reveals a great deal about culture, and the English-speaking world is far more attached to the sea than biblical Israel seems to have been.

What does this have to do with tanin? It demonstrates the biblical disinterest in careful delineation of denizens of the water. Jonah might have referred to the sea creature that swallowed himself as dag, fish, but if he meant a whale, he had no word for it. Just as the Bible had but two words for boat, it seems to have had only a very few ways to describe the inhabitants of the rivers and seas.

And so we reach the end of our path through great sea monsters, crocodiles, and other sorts of sea beasts. And yet, for many of us, there remains no word more evocative than dragon.