He beholdeth all high things: he is a king over all the children of pride.
Parallel translations
- WEB He sees everything that is high. He is king over all the sons of pride.”
- BSB He looks down on all the haughty; he is king over all the proud.”
- 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, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.
- Ps 73:6Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment.
- Job 28:8The lion’s whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it.
- Job 26:12He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through the proud.
- Ps 73:10Therefore his people return hither: and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them.
- Rev 12:1–3And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
- Rev 13:2And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
- Isa 28:1Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!
- Rev 20:2–3And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
- Exod 5:2And Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go.
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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.