The Destruction of the Great Serpent Monsters (Isaiah 27:1).
In this one verse Yahweh declares the bringing about of His purpose of judgement on all who stand against Him, whether man or god, in fulfilment of Isaiah 26:20-21. Some see this as a description of three monsters needing to be slain (representing the Tigris, the Euphrates and the Nile), others see it as one monster in a poetic threefold description. Either is possible. In them is summed up all evil empires under their evil masters, both earthly and heavenly.
Analysis.
a In that day Yahweh with his sore and great and strong sword
b Will punish Leviathan the swift (or ‘fleeing') serpent (nachash)
b And Leviathan the crooked (many-coiled) serpent (nachash)
a And he will slay the dragon (tannin) that is in the sea.
‘In that day Yahweh with his sore and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the swift (or ‘fleeing') serpent (nachash), and Leviathan the crooked (many-coiled) serpent (nachash), and he will slay the monster (tannin) that is in the sea.'
‘In that day' here has in mind any time when God acts to deliver His people, but specially to the final days of God's indignation on the peoples, included in Isaiah 26:20, when all enemies must finally be dealt with, and when the powerful triune sword of Yahweh will slay all the enemies of God's people, who are symbolised in the form of great serpent-like monsters. In mind surely must be the sinister being who lay behind the serpent (nachash) in Genesis 3. We can parallel the description here with Revelation 19:11-21 taken with Revelation 12:9-17; Revelation 13:1; Revelation 17:8-14.
The sword of Yahweh will be a regular feature in Isaiah's prophecies (Isaiah 34:5-6; Isaiah 41:2; Isaiah 66:16). Here it is described in a threefold way as sore (fierce) and great and strong, bringing out again that Yahweh is the Mighty Irresistible God. Nothing can stand against Him. Not even Leviathan.
Leviathan is seen here as a great serpent-like monster, also described as a ‘tannin' (sea monster), and it may be that only one monster is in mind. Many, however, argue that three monsters are in mind, an idea which might be seen as confirmed by the threefold prepositions before their descriptions, and the picture is then one of threefold power, and therefore of all empires. They are seen as swift and sinuous, ominously moving in swirling coils, and dwelling in the sea, indicating something greatly feared (Israel feared the sea), although not by God with His mighty sword. Compare the wild beasts that later arise from the sea in Daniel 7:3. Note that the threefold power of the sword parallels the threefold description of the monsters. None can stand against His mighty threefold sword (compare Revelation 19:15; Revelation 19:21). The descriptions are seen by many as associating the monsters with the great powers of both the north (Assyria and Babylon) and the south (Egypt), with the swiftness of the serpent symbolising the swiftly moving Tigris, the coiling of the serpent signifying the twisting Euphrates, and the tannin in the sea representing Egypt, with the ‘sea' being the home of the crocodile of the Nile, which is earlier described as a sea (Isaiah 19:5).
A Leviathan was regularly seen as something dreadful, a creature of the night, better not awakened (Job 3:8). It was seen as a water beast in Job 41:1 where the beast in mind may have been a large crocodile such as inhabited the Nile. But though fearsome to Israel it is regularly stressed that it is a creature of God, often seen as a creature of the sea (Psalms 104:26), and described in Psalms 74:14, where it is multiple headed, when Yahweh breaks its heads in order to feed people living in the wilderness. Thus any large water creatures may be in mind, although partly interpreted and thought of in terms of mythology. The Canaanite myth of the seven-headed monster probably arose because many who went to sea and saw such creatures probably mistook them as having a number of heads, and then so described them, deceived by seeing only parts (or groups close together only partly seen) arising out of the water, and having in their minds the pictures from mythology. It may be that Psalms 74:14 is using it to describe the might of Egypt, for there reference is also made there to the dividing of the sea and the breaking of the heads of the ‘tannin' in the waters in the same context as the feeding in the wilderness, but if so the thought is more universally expanded both there and here.
Certainly the tannin is elsewhere used to describe Egypt and Pharaoh (Ezekiel 29:3-5) where again the crocodile is in mind.
But the fearsomeness of Leviathan was extended even more by the part that it played in the mythology of Canaan where it was Lotan (cognate with Leviathan) ‘the swift (or ‘fleeing') serpent, the crooked serpent, the foul-fanged (or ‘accursed') with the seven heads' which was slain by Baal (the lord).
So here the descriptions of the Leviathans deliberately parallel those in the Baal epic and may be seen as suggesting huge serpent-like creatures that glide swiftly, possibly through the air (Job 26:13), coils ominously like a serpent, and are connected in thought with the tannin, the monster in the sea. Thus the thought here is of the destruction of beasts that represent all that is at enmity with God's faithful people, of great and awesome creature or creatures, with influence in both heaven and earth and sea, which are the enemy of God and His people, and have been so from the beginning when one first brought about man's fall. They symbolise within themselves all the enmity within creation, both natural and supernatural (Isaiah 24:21), against God's people, while probably having specifically in mind both the great Enemy himself, and the reality of the great nations who constantly threatened the people of God, influenced by the sinister forces of evil (Daniel 10). But here these great monsters are depicted as a defeated foe, to be smitten by the mighty sword of Yahweh.