I finish up Job 42 and I’m left to noodle on the last verse. Is God still talking about Leviathan, or has He switched things up and is revealing something about Himself? The answer? I think it’s, “Yes.”

Over these final chapters in Job, when God has taken center stage in the debate between Job & Co., God has presented to Job a primer on creation so that Job might gain insight as to his own arrogance towards the Creator.

“Will you even put Me in the wrong?
Will you condemn Me that you may be in the right?
Have you an arm like God,
and can you thunder with a voice like His?”

(Job 40:8-9 ESV)

And in illustrating “an arm like God” God talks about the biggest and most fearsome of His creation, Behemoth (40:15-24) and Leviathan (41:1-34). And if what distinguishes Behemoth is that he is big, what sets apart Leviathan is that he is bad — not bad as in evil, but bad as in you don’t want to mess with this dude! And God’s point to Job, it seems, is that if Job has no hope of taking on God’s creation, Leviathan, then what makes him think he can challenge Leviathan’s creator? For, “whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine” (Job 40:10-11).

And then, God’s “drop the mic” moment as He concludes His Leviathan lecture . . .

“On earth there is not his like,
a creature without fear.
He sees everything that is high;
he is king over all the sons of pride.”

(Job 41:33-34 ESV)

On earth there is not his like . . . he sees everything . . . he is king over all . . .

That’s what I’m hovering over this morning. Who is God talking about here? Leviathan? Himself as Leviathan’s creator? Like I said before, “Yes!”

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.

(Romans 1:19-20 ESV)

Job, says the LORD God Almighty, look over Leviathan’s shoulder and his untamable power and presence, and behold His Creator. Leviathan’s creator, Job, He’s the One you want an audience with, the One you want to go toe-to-toe with. He’s the One you are calling out, demanding your day in court. Give your head a shake, brother! For on earth there is not His like . . . He sees everything . . . He is king over all!

But as I chew on it, I realize that, for a brief span of history, there was once on earth “His like” — the man Christ Jesus.

. . . who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

(Philippians 2:6-8 ESV)

In times past, God spoke to Job through the bone-shaking, fear-invoking reality of Leviathan — a creature unlike anything on earth — in order to illustrate God’s own one-of-a-kind, other worldly power and presence and rule. “But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son” (Heb. 1:2). Immanuel, God with us. Far from the frightening figure of a great water beast, God instead reveals Himself to us very much like the people of earth — “Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see; Hail, the incarnate deity.”

Though still the One who sees everything, though never not the King of kings and the Lord of lords, Jesus enters our world looking very much like our world, sharing in our “flesh and blood”, being made “like His brothers in every respect” (Heb. 2:14-17). God making Himself known — the Father sending the Son conceived by the Spirit.

On earth there is not His like . . . but for a while there was. Oh, let’s celebrate that wondrous time.

And as we celebrate, may we see more than just the babe in the manger, but instead would we look over His shoulder and behold our God — the One who on earth is not His like, the One who sees everything, the One who is King over all.

O come, let us adore Him!

By His grace. For His glory.