Job 3:8-Cosmological Snake-Charming and Leviathanic Panic in a Near Eastern Setting

The author examines the intriguing mention of “those who curse Yamm” and “rouse Leviathan” in Job 3:8, and tries to relate these expressions to Near Eastern religious history. The old assumption that two texts inscribed on Aramaic incantation bowls indicate the full background of these expressions is challenged, and further evidence is sought in texts such as the Enuma Elish, the Gnosticizing “Hymn of the Pearl” and in a passage from the Hittite myth of Illuyanka. A pattern emerges in which the users of the Aramaic incantations are not themselves “those who curse Yamm” but that they, too, refer back to a much larger and more intricate tradition concerning spells powerful enough to bind the chaotic powers of the sea.