Psalms 74:13

Thou. — Verse after verse this emphatic pronoun recurs, as if challenging the Divine Being to contradict.

Divide. — Literally, break up.

Dragons. — Hebrew, tannînîm, not to be confounded with tannîm (Psalms 44:19, where see Note). It is the plural of tannín, which always indicates some aquatic monster. In Genesis 1:21 it is translated whale, so here by Symmachus. The LXX. (comp. Vulgate) have rendered this word and leviathan (in the next verse) by δράκων, and, indeed, the parallelism indicates monsters of a similar, if not the same, kind. About leviathan the minute and faithful description of the crocodile in Job 41 does not leave a doubt, and therefore we conclude that the tannin, here as in Ezekiel 29:3; Ezekiel 32:2 (margin), Isaiah 27:1; Isaiah 51:9 (where it is also, as here, joined with leviathan), an emblem of Egypt, was some great saurian, perhaps the alligator. The derivation from a root implying extend, favours this explanation. (Tristram, Nat. Hist. of the Bible, pp. 260, 261.) Besides its abundance, another fact leading to the crocodile becoming an emblem of Egypt, was the adoration paid to it. (See Herod., ii. 69.)

In the waters. — Literally, on the waters.