The argument that Psalm 74 represents a third creation account in the Old Testament is disputed. Some scholars, like Dahood, interpret its language as mythological rather than historical, drawing from Ugaritic parallels. However, Psalm 74 is an exilic lament, appealing to God’s past acts of salvation rather than creation. The imagery of God defeating chaos monsters aligns with historical events like the Exodus, rather than a cosmogony. Other biblical texts, including Psalms 89 and Isaiah 27, use similar motifs to depict divine intervention in history rather than creation. Thus, there is no third creation myth in the Old Testament.
There is an argument that there is a third creation account in the Old Testament, in addition to the two creation accounts of Genesis 1-2, in which God as storm deity defeats the chaos monster of the sea in order for dry land to emerge.
Dahood, notably, argued that translation of Psalm 74:13-14 has been “influenced by the assumption that the psalmist is here describing the division of waters during the passage through the Sea of Reeds.” What we have rather is the shattering or breaking of the sea. “The Ugaritic parallels show that vss. 13–14 do not describe historical events but rather primeval happenings.”1
Psalm 74
Psalm 74 is likely, though not certain, to be exilic, a lament over the ruin of Jerusalem and the temple. The enemies of Elohim have destroyed the sanctuary, they have set up their own emblems, they have “burned all the meeting places of God in the land; and there is no prophet to let them know how long this state of affairs will last (74:3-9). So the psalmist looks to God to put things right, reminding him that he worked salvation in the distant past—so why not now?
12 Elohim is my King from ancient times, working salvation in the midst of the earth. 13 You shattered by your might the sea, broke the heads of the monsters on the waters. 14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan, gave him as food for the people, for the desert dwellers. 15 You split open (baqaʿta) springs and wadis. You dried up (hovashta) strong rivers.
16 To you the day, also to you the night. You have furnished light and sun. 17 You have fixed all the borders of the earth. Summer and winter, you have ordained them. (Ps. 74:12-17*)
The meaning of this passage has been much debated. Is this a description of an original act of creation—a cosmogony—or of a subsequent divine intervention to maintain order in some respect? Is the language to be understood literally or as a figure for some essentially mundane or historical event?
Why am I bothering about this? I’m glad you ask. Because I would like to write a book about how the Bible understands the relationship between humanity and the natural order… if it’s not already too late. How do we bear witness to the living creator God in a time of climate crisis, at the dawn of the Anthropocene?
In the meantime, here are my preliminary reasons for thinking that we do not have a reference to a creation event, a cosmogony, in Psalm 74 and a few other texts.
It’s not a third creation story
1. The defeat of the sea monsters or serpents (tanninim) is an example of God “working salvation in the midst of the earth,” which does not sound like a reference to creation. In the context of an exilic psalm, this must entail an appeal to the God who saves—in all likelihood, saves his people—from a dire situation.
2. Some interpreters will claim that the temple was regarded as a microcosm of creation; therefore the destruction of the temple requires a re-run of the creation myth. The world has again descended into chaos; therefore Elohim must again defeat the chaos monsters. But this is not reflected in the lament, which fixes quite narrowly on the failure of God to punish his arrogant enemies and deliver his people.
3. The phrase “in the midst of the earth” (be qerev ha ʾaretz) weighs against a cosmogonic interpretation that sees here the primal emergence of dry land from the seas. It points to God doing something in an existing world, among the nations:
let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. (Gen. 48:16)
that you may know that I am the LORD in the midst of the earth. (Exod. 8:22)
Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth… (Is. 19:24)
thus it shall be in the midst of the earth among the nations… (Is. 24:13)
4. The psalmist has prayed that Elohim will remember his congregation, “which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage” (Ps. 74:2). God is reminded that he brought his people out of Egypt. The God who purchased them “of old” (qedem) is the God who is “from of old (qedem), working salvation in the midst of the earth” (74:12). The psalmist looks back no further than the foundational event of the exodus.
5. Translation of verse 14 is uncertain, but it looks as though Leviathan is given as food for a people (ʿam) in the desert. The Septuagint has the giant serpent given as food to the “Ethiopian peoples.”
6. Verse 15 speaks of God having “split open” (baqaʿta) springs and wadis and having dried up (hovashta) rivers. There are again difficulties with translation, but the actions are evocative of the exodus narrative:
He divided (baqaʿ) the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap. (Ps. 78:13)
He split (yevaqqaʿ) rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep. (Ps. 78:15)
They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split (yivqaʿ) the rock and the water gushed out. (Is. 48:21)
For the LORD your God dried up (hovish) the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up (hovish) for us until we passed over… (Josh. 4:23)
7. At first glance, verses 16-17 appear to describe the creation of a cosmic order, but “To you the day, also to you the night” suggests the affirmation of an enduring divine order, evidenced in the routines of night and day, summer and winter, and in the arrangement of the borders of the land mass, not least the coastlines.
8. Similar imagery is found in Psalm 89. YHWH rules the raging sea and stills the waves. “You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm” (89:10). While the language is mythological, the reference is to the defeat of Israel’s enemies. The crushing of Rahab is a figure for the suppression of the human and natural forces that stood in the way of the Israelites as they fled from Egypt:
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? (Is. 51:9-10; see also 30:7; Ps. 87:4; Ezek. 29:3)
9. Just as Rahab is a symbol for Egypt, so in Isaiah 27:1 Leviathan is a symbol for Tyre, which will be laid waste by Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Is. 23:1).
In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. (Is. 27:1)
The parallel with these lines from the Baal Cycle is striking: “you smote Litan the wriggling serpent, finished off the writhing serpent, Encircler-with-seven-heads” (KTU 1.5 i 1). As an aside, the political application of the theme in the Bible is also apparent in the seven-headed beast which emerges from the sea, at the behest of the dragon, to become the hostile Roman empire (Rev. 13:1).
But the imagery is used to speak of a future triumph of YHWH over the forces that have ruined his people. To what extent the envisaged restoration of Israel transcends history is unclear, but the mythological language is used to denote the destruction of an enemy, not the creation of something new.
10. Job 26:12-13 is not easily assimilated to this interpretation: “By his power he stilled the sea; by his understanding he shattered Rahab. By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.” But the surrounding passage has to do with the present, not the the primordial, “ways” of God in relation to his creation
11. Finally, I’ve read a good chunk of the Baal Cycle, and it’s unclear that the battle between Ba’al and Yamm in the Ba’al Cycle is to be regarded as a creation event. Others agree:
While the Baal Cycle presents episodes of cosmic conflict (the battles with Yamm and Mot), one of the most noteworthy aspects of these stories is that they do not culminate in creation. It is thus not too surprising that there is no indication that these stories are set in a distant past. Rather the cycle seems to be set in the vague near present. (Mark S. Smith and Wayne T. Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, Vol. II (2009), 45)
In Ugaritic sources the battle between Baal and Yamm and associated beings is primarily related to a struggle for cosmic power and divine kingship rather than to creation, which is the case also in Ps 74:12–14. (Marvin E. Tate, Psalms 51-100, 251)
Conclusion
The Ugaritic myths are not cosmogonic. They are cosmological, inasmuch as the gods are identified with elemental forces, but the Baal Cycle describes a power struggle—perhaps an ever-present power struggle—not the creation of the world out of chaos.
The motif of cosmological supremacy is transferred to the God of the Israelites in the Old Testament, but it is used by and large with reference to specific divine actions in history—the crossing of the sea, the crossing of the Jordan, the ruin of Tyre. There is no third creation myth in the Old Testament.
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Mitchell Dahood, Psalms 51-100 (1974), 205
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