Psalms 74:14
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
You brake the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gave him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
American King James Version (AKJV)
You brake the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gave him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
American Standard Version (ASV)
Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces; Thou gavest him to be food to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
The heads of the great snake were crushed by you; you gave them as food to the fishes of the sea.
Webster's Revision
Thou didst break the head of leviathan in pieces, and didst give him to be food to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
World English Bible
You broke the heads of Leviathan in pieces. You gave him as food to people and desert creatures.
English Revised Version (ERV)
Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, thou gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
Definitions for Psalms 74:14
Clarke's Psalms 74:14 Bible Commentary
The heads of leviathan - Leviathan might be intended here as a personification of the Egypttan government; and its heads, Pharaoh and his chief captains.
To the people inhabiting the wilderness - Probably meaning the birds and beasts of prey. These were the people of the wilderness, which fed on the dead bodies of the Egyptians, which the tides had cast ashore. The Vulgate, Septuagint, Ethiopic, and Arabic read, "Thou hast given him for meat to the Ethiopians," or Abyssinians.
Barnes's Psalms 74:14 Bible Commentary
Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces - On the meaning of the word "leviathan," see the notes at Job 41:1. The word is used here as descriptive of sea monsters.
And gavest him to be meat - Gavest him for "food."
To the people inhabiting the wilderness - That is, the sea monsters were killed, and, being thrown on shore, were gathered for food. The "inhabitants of the wilderness" or the desert, may refer either to the wild and savage tribes of men that lived on the shores of the sea, and that subsisted mainly on fish, or it may refer to the wild animals of the desert that consumed such sea monsters as they were cast up on the shore. There is no allusion to the Israelites considered as passing through the desert, as if they had fed on these sea monsters. The essential idea is, that these monsters were put to death, or were so removed but of the way as to offer no obstruction to the passage of the Israelites through the sea. It was as if they had been killed. The image is entirely poetic, and there is no necessity for supposing that such a thing literally occurred.
Wesley's Psalms 74:14 Bible Commentary
74:14 Leviathan - Pharaoh. The people - To the ravenous birds and beasts of the desert. These creatures are significantly called the people of the wilderness, because they are the only people that inhabit it.