6 myths
The monsters of the deep in Jewish tradition: Leviathan, Rahab, the great fish that swallowed Jonah, and the creatures of the abyss.
6 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines sea creatures, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
Pharaoh asked who God was, then loosed six hundred chariots after Israel. At the sea, the same waters came down on him hard as stone.
A prophet sinks into one whirlpool and lives. An army sinks into two depths and does not. The same sea measures both, and finds the soldiers worse.
Pharaoh's army sank like lead into the sea. The same water still waits, holding its breath for the armies of Gog at the end of days.
Swallowed whole, Jonah found a diamond burning in the fish's belly, then learned the fish was about to be fed to Leviathan, with him still inside.
Bava Batra remembers Rabbah bar bar Chana on seas where one dead fish destroyed sixty cities, and fiery waves could only be calmed by the Name.
A dying father told his son to throw bread into the water every day. One fish grew too large, complained to Leviathan, and the king of the sea summoned the man.
