He looks down on all the haughty; he is king over all the proud.”
Parallel translations
- WEB He sees everything that is high. He is king over all the sons of pride.”
- KJV He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.
- NKJV He beholds every high thing; He is king over all the children of pride.”
- NASB “He looks on everything that is high; He is king over all the sons of pride.”
- NLT Of all the creatures, it is the proudest. It is the king of beasts.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Leviathan looks down on everything proud and reigns as king over all the proud. He embodies a defiant power that only God Himself can ultimately master.
Overview
This climactic verse pictures Leviathan as sovereign over all the proud, fearing nothing high or lofty. The closing image drives home God's argument from the whirlwind: human pride is small before such a creature, and smaller still before the Creator who made and rules it. Faithful readers have long seen Leviathan as a fitting emblem of proud, hostile powers that God alone subdues, pointing forward to Christ's final triumph over every evil power.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Ezek 29:3Speak to him and tell him that this is what the Lord GOD says: Behold, I am against you, O Pharaoh king of Egypt, O great monster who lies among his rivers, who says, ‘The Nile is mine; I made it myself.’
- Ps 73:6Therefore pride is their necklace; a garment of violence covers them.
- Job 28:8Proud beasts have never trodden it; no lion has ever prowled over it.
- Job 26:12By His power He stirred the sea; by His understanding He shattered Rahab.
- Ps 73:10So their people return to this place and drink up waters in abundance.
- Rev 12:1–3And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.
- Rev 13:2The beast I saw was like a leopard, with the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.
- Isa 28:1Woe to the majestic crown of Ephraim’s drunkards, to the fading flower of his glorious splendor, set on the summit above the fertile valley, the pride of those overcome by wine.
- Rev 20:2–3He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
- Exod 5:2But Pharaoh replied, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and I will not let Israel go.”
Resources, by level
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 41:34 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.