Leviathan's Terrible Beauty Remains under God's Claim

God claims what is under heaven, including this terror

Who has prevented me, that I should repay him? Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine. The speech then refuses silence about Leviathan's parts: his comely proportion, his face's seals, his scale-armor so near that no air can come between, his sneezes of light, his eyes like dawn, burning lamps from his mouth, sparks, smoke from his nostrils, a flame from his breath, a neck of strength, flaked flesh, a heart as hard as a stone, the mighty who are afraid.

The sword, spear, dart, and habergeon avail nothing. He counts iron as straw, brass as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee. Slingstones are turned with him into stubble. Darts are counted as stubble. He laughs at the shaking of a spear.

Terrible beauty stays under God's claim, not under a king's

Sharp stones are under him. He spreads sharp pointed things on the mire. He makes the deep to boil like a pot. He makes the sea like a pot of ointment. He leaves a shining path. One would think the deep to be hoary. On earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. He beholds all high things. He is a king over all the children of pride.

The hyperbolic body is not a field notebook and not a charter for untouchable rulers. Leviathan's kingship over pride is a creature's frightful eminence, still inside the claim, 'whatever is under heaven is mine.' God can address what humans cannot master. That is still not a theodicy that itemizes Job's losses. It is the last image before Job speaks again: a world with a boiling wake in it, and a God who will not hand that wake to Job.