Rahab (Egypt)

“Rahab” was the name of a mythological sea serpent or dragon, lit the “boisterous one,” referred to a number of times in the OT (Psa 87:4; 89:10; Job 9:13; 26:12; Isa 30:7; 51:9). The name of this monster has not hitherto been discovered in any extrabiblical text. In the OT, Rahab functions similarly to Leviathan, an originally Canaanite chaos monster, but whether these are to be identified or are separate monsters in origin is not entirely clear.

Rahab appears in two different contexts in the OT. On the one hand, it appears as a sea monster defeated at the time of creation (Psa 89:10; Job 9:13; 26:12), and on the other as a metaphorical name for Egypt (Psa 87:4; Isa 30:7). In Isa 51:9 the two usages may be combined.