(14) Leviathan.--See last note.

And gavest him . . .--The crocodile was eaten by the people of Elephantine (Herod. ii. 69), but there is no allusion here to that custom, nor to the Ichthyophagi mentioned by Agatharchides, nor to the 'thiopians (as in the LXX.). It is the Egyptian corpses thrown up by the Red Sea that are to be devoured (comp. Ezekiel 29:3-5) by the "wild beasts," called here "people," as the ants and conies are (Proverbs 30:25-26).

Verse 14. - Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces. Here the metaphor is only slightly varied, leviathan, "the crocodile," being substituted for tannim, "the dragon," or "sea monster," as the representative of the might of Egypt. And gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. The corpses of the Egyptians thrown up upon the Red Sea shores (Exodus 14:30) are certainly the "meat" intended. Whether the "people of dwellers in the wilderness" are cannibal tribes, or jackals and hyenas, is perhaps doubtful.

74:12-17 The church silences her own complaints. What God had done for his people, as their King of old, encouraged them to depend on him. It was the Lord's doing, none besides could do it. This providence was food to faith and hope, to support and encourage in difficulties. The God of Israel is the God of nature. He that is faithful to his covenant about the day and the night, will never cast off those whom he has chosen. We have as much reason to expect affliction, as to expect night and winter. But we have no more reason to despair of the return of comfort, than to despair of day and summer. And in the world above we shall have no more changes.Thou breakest the heads of leviathan in pieces,.... A large fish, generally thought to be the whale, by some the crocodile, described in Job 41:1 to which the king of Egypt or Babylon is compared, Isaiah 27:1 and so the Romish antichrist in one of his characters is represented as a sea beast with many heads, which will all be broken in pieces in due time, Revelation 13:1, as here is one "leviathan" with heads in the plural number. Aben Ezra thinks the word is wanting, and may be supplied thus, "thou hast broken the heads of every leviathan"; it may be interpreted as before of Pharaoh and his chief men; so the Targum,

"thou hast broken the heads of the mighty men of Pharaoh:''

and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness; either to the wild beasts, called "tziim", the word here used, Isaiah 13:21 and may be called a people, as the ants and coneys are, Proverbs 30:25, to whom the dead bodies of Pharaoh and his host, drowned in the Red sea, were given for food, when they were cast upon the shore, where the Israelites saw them dead, Exodus 14:28, or to the "Ichthyophagy", a sort of people that dwelt by the Red sea, and lived on fishes; and so the Egyptians became their food, they living upon the fish which devoured their bodies, at least some of them: the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions, render it, "to the people", the Ethiopians; who, it seems, living upon the borders of Egypt, took this opportunity, when Pharaoh and his host were drowned, and seized upon their country; but others refer it to the people of Israel themselves, as the Targum,

"thou hast given them for destruction to the people of the house of Israel, and their bodies to the dragons;''

and so Jarchi,

"thou hast given his mammon or riches to the people of Israel, to feed their companies and armies;''

and Kimchi interprets it of the spoil of the sea which the Israelites took from them; and they may be truly called the people inhabiting the wilderness, since they were in one forty years; so the Romish "leviathan", or antichristian whore, will be given to the Christian kings, who will hate her, eat her flesh, and burn her with fire; and to the Christian church, which now is in the wilderness, where it is nourished for a time and times, and half a time.