Which One

In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.

Isaiah 27:1

Here we have a text that contains a very confusing set of directions. It might sound awfully funny at first. But when the good, kind, strong, just, and friendly Leviathan we knew and loved before is gone and in its' place is either a piercing serpent or a crooked serpent, it matters a lot. Even more of an issue is the dragon that is in the sea. See, God has perfectly good reasons for doing whatever it is that he does. Yet the issue here goes much deeper than that. The dragon in the sea came to the Lord's attention for having done something specific. Just as places have a number of geographic locators, so do people. Here are two characteristics of leviathan gone bad if you will. Could you identify them if you saw these again? A bad creature such as this is crooked, and piercing is it not. Look very carefully now. Sure, you can go to the sea and pull up almost any sort of a monster you wish. It could even be a very big fish, but that in and of itself does not make it a sea dragon nor a bad one, don't you see?