myBibleHistory

Journey of a Passage

Job 3:8

Rousing Leviathan

"Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning" (KJV). The Hebrew word the KJV read as "their mourning" is livyatan, Leviathan. The library's Greek reads "him who can master the great sea-monster"; the Vulgate keeps "Leviathan."

Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. Original JobPoem often dated 6th–4th century BC (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Job
Aramaic
    Greek and its daughters
    1. Greek Job, filled-out text (library: Giguet's French)Printed Septuagint; translated 1872Translated from the Greek text as filled out after Origen
    Latin
    1. Jerome's Vulgatec. AD 390s, from HebrewTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day
    English
    1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    Every witness, in order

    1. Poem often dated 6th–4th century BC (debated)

      Original Job

      – No copy survives

      No original survives. Small Hebrew fragments of Job are known from Qumran (2Q15, 4Q99–101).

    2. c. AD 390s, from Hebrew

      Jerome's Vulgate

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

      Maledicant ei qui maledicunt diei, qui parati sunt suscitare Leviathan.

    3. AD 1008

      Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

      ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Job

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

      יִקְּבֻ֥הוּ אֹרְרֵי־י֑וֹם הָ֝עֲתִידִ֗ים עֹרֵ֥ר לִוְיָתָֽן׃

    4. 1611

      King James Bible

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

      How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

      Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.

    5. Printed Septuagint; translated 1872

      Greek Job, filled-out text (library: Giguet's French)

      ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Greek text as filled out after Origen

      How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

      Qu’elle soit maudite de Celui qui fait de ce jour un jour maudit et qui peut maîtriser le grand monstre marin.

      Greek via Giguet's French (filled-out printed text); not checked against Ziegler's critical edition.

    What changed, and why

    Most modern versions read "those skilled to rouse Leviathan." A proposed play on yam (sea) and yom (day) would give "those who curse the Sea." The KJV's "mourning" follows a medieval Jewish interpretation of the word. The verse links Job's curse to the chaos-monster of chapter 41.

    What the evidence shows

    • Independently documentedThe Hebrew of 3:8 contains the word livyatan.
    • Independently documentedThe KJV renders it "their mourning."

    Sources

      Related lessons

      • Let the Day Perish →After seven days of silence Job speaks, and the book changes from prose to poetry. He curses the day he was born and the night he was conceived, asking that darkness reclaim them. He wishes he had died at birth and lay at rest with kings, prisoners and slaves, where "the weary be at rest." He asks why light is given to those who long for death. He does not curse God; he curses his own beginning.
      • Investigation: Behemoth and Leviathan →God's second speech ends with two creatures. Behemoth eats grass, lies in the reeds and is unbothered by the Jordan in flood; most scholars identify it as the hippopotamus. Leviathan has impenetrable scales, terrible teeth, breathes fire and makes the deep boil; it has been read as the crocodile, the whale, or the mythic sea-serpent known from Ugarit (Lotan). Later Jewish tradition made them primeval monsters. Some modern readers propose dinosaurs. The evidence, read whole, supports real animals painted with mythic colour, and no single identification should be made dogma.