Reference: Dragon
American
Answers, in the English Bible, the Hebrew word signifying a sea-monster, huge serpent, etc. Thus in De 32:33; Jer 51:34; Re 12, it evidently implies a huge serpent; in Isa 27:1; 51:9; Eze 29:3, it may mean the crocodile, or any large sea-monster; while in Job 30:29; La 4:3; Mic 1:8, it seems to refer to some wild animal of the desert, most probably the jackal. The animal known to modern naturalists under the name of dragon, is a harmless species of lizard, found in Asia and Africa.
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Their wine the wrath of dragons, And the fierce head of asps.
I was a brother to jackals, and a companion to the daughters of the ostrich.
In that day Jehovah will review with his hard and great and strong sword upon leviathan the serpent fleeing, and upon leviathan the winding serpent; and he killed the dragon which was in the sea.
Rouse up, rouse up, put on strength, thou arm of Jehovah; rouse up as the days of old, of everlasting generations. Was it not with him cutting off Rahab, wounding the sea monster?
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel consumed us, he destroyed us, he set us an empty vessel, he swallowed us down as a dragon, he filled his belly with my delicacies, he thrust us away.
Also the dragons draw out the breast, they suckled their sucklings: the daughter of my people violent as the ostriches in the desert.
Speak and say, Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Behold me against thee Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great sea-monster lying in the midst of his rivers, who said, The, river is to me, and I made me.
For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked: I will make wailing as jackals, and mourning as the daughters of the ostrich.
Easton
(1.) Heb tannim, plural of tan. The name of some unknown creature inhabiting desert places and ruins (Job 30:29; Ps 44:19; Isa 13:22; 34:13; 43:20; Jer 10:22; Mic 1:8; Mal 1:3); probably, as translated in the Revised Version, the jackal (q.v.).
(2.) Heb tannin. Some great sea monster (Jer 51:34 it may denote the crocodile. In Ge 1:21 (Heb plural tanninim) the Authorized Version renders "whales," and the Revised Version "sea monsters." It is rendered "serpent" in Ex 7:9. It is used figuratively in Ps 74:13; Eze 29:3.
In the New Testament the word "dragon" is found only in Re 12:3-4,7,9,16-17, etc., and is there used metaphorically of "Satan." (See Whale.)
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And God will form great sea. monsters and every living soul creeping, which the waters bred abundantly according to their kind, and every bird of wing according to its kind: and God will see that it is good.
When Pharaoh shall speak to you, saying, Give ye a wonder for you; and say to Aaron, Take thy rod and cast down before Pharaoh, it shall be into a dragon.
I was a brother to jackals, and a companion to the daughters of the ostrich.
For thou didst crush us in the place of jackals, and thou wilt cover over us with the shadow of death.
Thou didst cleave the sea in thy strength: thou didst break the heads of the dragons upon the waters.
And howlers cried out in its palaces, and great serpents in the temples of delight: and her time draws near to come, and her days shall not be protracted.
And thorns came up in her palaces, the nettle and the thorn bush in her fortifications, and it was a dwelling of jackals, an enclosure for the daughters of the ostrich.
The beast of the field shall know me, the sea monster and the daughters of the ostrich: for I gave waters in the desert, rivers in the waste to give drink to my people, my chosen.
Behold, a voice of tidings coming, and a great shaking from the land of the north, to set the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling of jackals.
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel consumed us, he destroyed us, he set us an empty vessel, he swallowed us down as a dragon, he filled his belly with my delicacies, he thrust us away.
Speak and say, Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Behold me against thee Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great sea-monster lying in the midst of his rivers, who said, The, river is to me, and I made me.
For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked: I will make wailing as jackals, and mourning as the daughters of the ostrich.
And I hated Esau, and I will set his mountains a desolation, and his inheritance for the jackals of the desert
And another sign was seen in heaven; and behold a great fiery red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems. And his tail draws the third of the stars of heaven, and he cast them into the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman about to bring forth, that when she should bring forth he might devour her child.
And war was in heaven; and Michael and his angels waged war against the dragon; and the dragon waged war and his angels,
And the great dragon was cast out, the old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, he deceiving the whole habitable globe: he was cast into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed down the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was angry at the woman, and went out to make war with the rest of her seed, those keeping the commands of God, and having the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Fausets
Tannin, tan. Tan in Jer 14:6, "dragons" "snuffing up the wind" is translated by Henderson jackals; rather the great boas and python serpents are meant, which raise their body vertically ten or twelve feet high, surveying the neighborhood above the bushes, while with open jaws they drink in the air. They were made types of the deluge and all destructive agencies; hence the dragon temples are placed near water in Asia, Africa, and Britain, e.g. that of Abury in Wiltshire. The ark is often associated with it, as the preserver from the waters. The dragon temples are serpentine in form; dragon standards were used in Egypt and Babylon, and among the widely-scattered Celts.
Apollo's slaying Python is the Greek legend implying the triumph of light over darkness and evil. The tannin are any great monsters, whether of land or sea, trans. Ge 1:21 "great sea monsters." So (La 4:3) "even sea monsters (tannin) draw out the breast," alluding to the mammalia which sometimes visit the Mediterranean, or the halichore cow whale of the Red Sea. Large whales do not often frequent the Mediterranean, which was the sea that the Israelites knew; they apply "sea" to the Nile and Euphrates, and so apply "tannin" to the crocodile, their horror in Egypt, as also to the large serpents which they saw in the desert. "The dragon in the sea," which Jehovah shall punish in the day of Israel's deliverance, is Antichrist, the antitype to Babylon on the Euphrates' waters (Isa 27:1).
In Ps 74:13, "Thou brokest the heads of the dragons in the waters," Egypt's princes and Pharaoh are poetically represented hereby, just as crocodiles are the monarchs of the Nile waters. So (Isa 51:9-10) the crocodile is the emblem of Egypt and its king on coins of Augustus struck after the conquest of Egypt. "A habitation of dragons" expresses utter desolation, as venomous snakes abound in ruins of ancient cities (De 32:33; Jer 49:33; Isa 34:13). In the New Testament it symbolizes Satan the old serpent (Genesis 3), combining gigantic strength with craft, malignity, and venom (Re 12:3). The dragon's color, "red," fiery red, implies that he was a murderer from the beginning.
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And God will form great sea. monsters and every living soul creeping, which the waters bred abundantly according to their kind, and every bird of wing according to its kind: and God will see that it is good.
Their wine the wrath of dragons, And the fierce head of asps.
Thou didst cleave the sea in thy strength: thou didst break the heads of the dragons upon the waters.
In that day Jehovah will review with his hard and great and strong sword upon leviathan the serpent fleeing, and upon leviathan the winding serpent; and he killed the dragon which was in the sea.
And thorns came up in her palaces, the nettle and the thorn bush in her fortifications, and it was a dwelling of jackals, an enclosure for the daughters of the ostrich.
Rouse up, rouse up, put on strength, thou arm of Jehovah; rouse up as the days of old, of everlasting generations. Was it not with him cutting off Rahab, wounding the sea monster? Was it not with him desolating the sea, the water of the great deep? setting the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?
And the wild asses stood upon the naked hills, they panted after the wind as the jackals; their eyes failed because no grass.
And Hazor was for a dwelling of jackals, a desolation even to forever: a man shall not dwell there, and the son of man shall not sojourn in it
Also the dragons draw out the breast, they suckled their sucklings: the daughter of my people violent as the ostriches in the desert.
And another sign was seen in heaven; and behold a great fiery red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems.
Hastings
(1) tann
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And God will form great sea. monsters and every living soul creeping, which the waters bred abundantly according to their kind, and every bird of wing according to its kind: and God will see that it is good.
When Pharaoh shall speak to you, saying, Give ye a wonder for you; and say to Aaron, Take thy rod and cast down before Pharaoh, it shall be into a dragon. And Moses will go, and Aaron, to Pharaoh, and they will do thus as Jehovah commanded: and Aaron will cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it will be into a dragon. read more. And Pharaoh also will call to the wise men and to the magicians; and the sacred scribes of Egypt, they also will do so with their enchantments. And they will cast down each their rod, and they will be for dragons: and Aaron's rod swallowed their rods.
Am I the sea, or a dragon, that thou wilt set a watch over me?
I was a brother to jackals, and a companion to the daughters of the ostrich.
For thou didst crush us in the place of jackals, and thou wilt cover over us with the shadow of death.
Thou didst cleave the sea in thy strength: thou didst break the heads of the dragons upon the waters.
And howlers cried out in its palaces, and great serpents in the temples of delight: and her time draws near to come, and her days shall not be protracted.
And thorns came up in her palaces, the nettle and the thorn bush in her fortifications, and it was a dwelling of jackals, an enclosure for the daughters of the ostrich.
And the dry was for a pool, and the thirsty land for fountains of water: in the dwelling of jackals its lying down, an enclosure for the reed and the bulrush
Rouse up, rouse up, put on strength, thou arm of Jehovah; rouse up as the days of old, of everlasting generations. Was it not with him cutting off Rahab, wounding the sea monster?
Behold, a voice of tidings coming, and a great shaking from the land of the north, to set the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling of jackals.
And Hazor was for a dwelling of jackals, a desolation even to forever: a man shall not dwell there, and the son of man shall not sojourn in it
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel consumed us, he destroyed us, he set us an empty vessel, he swallowed us down as a dragon, he filled his belly with my delicacies, he thrust us away.
Speak and say, Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Behold me against thee Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great sea-monster lying in the midst of his rivers, who said, The, river is to me, and I made me.
Son of man, lift up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say to him, Thou wert like a young lion of the nations, and thou as a whale in the seas: and thou wilt break forth with thy rivers, and trouble the waters with thy feet, and thou wilt tread their rivers.
And I hated Esau, and I will set his mountains a desolation, and his inheritance for the jackals of the desert
And another sign was seen in heaven; and behold a great fiery red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems.
Morish
tannin, ??????. It may signify any great serpent or sea monster, symbolical of a huge destructive creature. Nations doomed to destruction and desolation, including Jerusalem, are said to become habitations of dragons. Isa 34:13; 35:7; Jer 9:11; 10:22; 51:37. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is called the great dragon. Eze 29:3. As one of God's creatures the dragon is called upon to praise Jehovah. Ps 148:7. In the N.T. the dragon is a type of Satan and those energised by him. In Re 12:3 the "great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns," is symbolical of Satan's power in the form of the Roman empire: it endeavoured, in the person of Herod, to destroy Christ when born. In Re 13:2,4 it is Satan who gives the resuscitated Roman empire in a future day its throne and great authority. In Re 13:11 the Antichrist, who has two horns like a lamb, speaks as a dragon. In Re 16:13 it is Satan, and in Re 20:2 he is described as "that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan."
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Praise Jehovah from the earth, ye dragons and all depths:
And thorns came up in her palaces, the nettle and the thorn bush in her fortifications, and it was a dwelling of jackals, an enclosure for the daughters of the ostrich.
And the dry was for a pool, and the thirsty land for fountains of water: in the dwelling of jackals its lying down, an enclosure for the reed and the bulrush
And I gave Jerusalem for heaps and a dwelling of jackals; and the cities of Judah I will give a desolation from none inhabiting.
Behold, a voice of tidings coming, and a great shaking from the land of the north, to set the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling of jackals.
And Babel was for heaps, a habitation of jackals, an astonishment and a hissing, from none inhabiting.
Speak and say, Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Behold me against thee Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great sea-monster lying in the midst of his rivers, who said, The, river is to me, and I made me.
And another sign was seen in heaven; and behold a great fiery red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems.
And the wild beast which I saw was like a panther, and his feet as of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority.
And they worshipped the dragon which gave power to the wild beast: and they worshipped the wild beast, saying, Who like the beast? who shall be able to war with him
And I saw another wild beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
And I saw out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the wild beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs.
And he seized the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Smith
Dragon.
The translators of the Authorized Version, apparently following the Vulgate, have rendered by the same word "dragon" the two Hebrew words tan and tannin, which appear to be quite distinct in meaning.
1. The former is used, always in the plural, in
Job 30:29; Ps 44:19; Isa 34:13; 43:20; Jer 9:11
It is always applied to some creatures inhabiting the desert, and we should conclude from this that it refers rather to some wild beast than to a serpent. The syriac renders it by a word which, according to Pococke, means a "jackal."
2. The word tannin seems to refer to any great monster, whether of the land or the sea, being indeed more usually applied to some kind of serpent or reptile, but not exclusively restricted to that sense.
Ex 7:9-10,12; De 32:33; Ps 91:13
In the New Testament it is found only in the Apocalypse,
etc., as applied metaphorically to "the old serpent, called the devil, and Satan."
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When Pharaoh shall speak to you, saying, Give ye a wonder for you; and say to Aaron, Take thy rod and cast down before Pharaoh, it shall be into a dragon. And Moses will go, and Aaron, to Pharaoh, and they will do thus as Jehovah commanded: and Aaron will cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it will be into a dragon.
And they will cast down each their rod, and they will be for dragons: and Aaron's rod swallowed their rods.
Their wine the wrath of dragons, And the fierce head of asps.
I was a brother to jackals, and a companion to the daughters of the ostrich.
For thou didst crush us in the place of jackals, and thou wilt cover over us with the shadow of death.
Upon the lion and the asp, shalt thou tread: thou shalt tread down the young lion and the dragon.
And thorns came up in her palaces, the nettle and the thorn bush in her fortifications, and it was a dwelling of jackals, an enclosure for the daughters of the ostrich.
The beast of the field shall know me, the sea monster and the daughters of the ostrich: for I gave waters in the desert, rivers in the waste to give drink to my people, my chosen.
And I gave Jerusalem for heaps and a dwelling of jackals; and the cities of Judah I will give a desolation from none inhabiting.
And another sign was seen in heaven; and behold a great fiery red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems. And his tail draws the third of the stars of heaven, and he cast them into the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman about to bring forth, that when she should bring forth he might devour her child.
And war was in heaven; and Michael and his angels waged war against the dragon; and the dragon waged war and his angels,
And the great dragon was cast out, the old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, he deceiving the whole habitable globe: he was cast into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed down the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was angry at the woman, and went out to make war with the rest of her seed, those keeping the commands of God, and having the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Watsons
DRAGON. This word is frequently to be met with in our English translation of the Bible. It answers generally to the Hebrew ??, ????, ????; and these words are variously rendered dragons, serpents, sea- monsters, and whales. The Rev. James Hurdis, in a dissertation relative to this subject, observes, that the word translated "whales," in Ge 1:21, occurs twenty-seven times in Scripture; and he attempts, with much ingenuity, to prove that it every where signifies the crocodile. That it sometimes has this meaning, he thinks is clear from Eze 29:3: "Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers." For, to what could a king of Egypt be more properly compared than the crocodile? The same argument he draws from Isa 51:9: "Art thou not he that hath cut Rahab, [Egypt,] and wounded the dragon?" Among the ancients the crocodile was the symbol of Egypt, and appears so on Roman coins. Some however have thought the hippopotamus intended; others, one of the larger species of serpents.
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And God will form great sea. monsters and every living soul creeping, which the waters bred abundantly according to their kind, and every bird of wing according to its kind: and God will see that it is good.
Rouse up, rouse up, put on strength, thou arm of Jehovah; rouse up as the days of old, of everlasting generations. Was it not with him cutting off Rahab, wounding the sea monster?
Speak and say, Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Behold me against thee Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great sea-monster lying in the midst of his rivers, who said, The, river is to me, and I made me.