Are dragons in the Bible?

Are dragons in the Bible? Yes. The King James Version uses the word dragon 19 times and dragons 16 times. They show up in two very different ways: in the Old Testament as sea monsters and desert creatures, and in the Book of Revelation as a great red dragon with seven heads that stands for Satan.

Every verse with the word dragon

Twelve of these are in Revelation:

• Nehemiah 2:13: And I went out by night by the gate of the valley, even before the dragon well, and to the dung port, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and the gates thereof were consumed with fire.
• Psalms 91:13: Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
• Isaiah 27:1: 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 51:9: Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD ; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon?
• Jeremiah 51:34: Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out.
• Ezekiel 29:3: Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD ; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.
• Revelation 12:3: And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
• Revelation 12:4: And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
• Revelation 12:7: And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
• Revelation 12:9: And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
• Revelation 12:13: And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child .
• Revelation 12:16: And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
• Revelation 12:17: And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
• Revelation 13:2: And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
• Revelation 13:4: And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
• Revelation 13:11: And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
• Revelation 16:13: And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
• Revelation 20:2: And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

Every verse with the word dragons

Are dragons in the Bible in the plural too? Yes, almost all in the Old Testament. Notice how many of these describe ruins and deserts rather than monsters:

• Deuteronomy 32:33: Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
• Job 30:29: I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.
• Psalms 44:19: Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.
• Psalms 74:13: Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
• Psalms 148:7: Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:
• Isaiah 13:22: And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.
• Isaiah 34:13: And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.
• Isaiah 35:7: And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
• Isaiah 43:20: The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.
• Jeremiah 9:11: And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.
• Jeremiah 10:22: Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.
• Jeremiah 14:6: And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass.
• Jeremiah 49:33: And Hazor shall be a dwelling for dragons, and a desolation for ever: there shall no man abide there, nor any son of man dwell in it.
• Jeremiah 51:37: And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.
• Micah 1:8: Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.
• Malachi 1:3: And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

Two Hebrew words, one English word

The King James translators used dragon for two Hebrew words that look alike. Tannin means a large sea creature or serpent; it is the word in Isaiah 27:1, where the dragon in the sea is named alongside leviathan, and in Ezekiel 29:3, where Pharaoh is called “the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers”. Tannim, used in the desert verses, describes animals that wail at night in abandoned places. Modern translations such as the NIV and ESV usually render that second word as jackals, which is why “dragons in their pleasant palaces” (Isaiah 13:22) becomes jackals in newer Bibles. So the answer to “are dragons in the Bible?” depends partly on which translation is in your hands: many in the KJV, fewer in a modern Bible.

In the New Testament, Revelation was written in Greek and uses drakon, the word that gives us dragon. There the meaning is spelled out: the dragon is the Devil. He fights Michael and his angels (Revelation 12:7), pursues the woman (Revelation 12:13), gives power to the beast (Revelation 13:2), and is finally bound for a thousand years (Revelation 20:2).

Are dragons in the Bible a common creature? With 35 mentions across a text of 790,705 words, dragon is a fairly common creature word in the KJV. The King James Bible word count page puts that in context book by book.

Are dragons in the Bible the same as dinosaurs?

Leviathan appears 5 times in the KJV, and Isaiah 27:1 puts it in the same sentence as the dragon. Some readers take these passages as memories of dinosaurs; others see them as ancient poetry about chaos and the sea. Either way, the word dinosaur itself is not in the Bible. Read more on the are dinosaurs in the Bible page, or compare with another creature that the KJV translators named from older versions, the unicorn.

To check dragon, leviathan, or any other word in a sentence, paste the text into the word checker. Each word that appears in the King James Bible turns green, and tapping it shows the count and the first verse where it appears. It is the quickest way to answer “are dragons in the Bible?” for any spelling, singular or plural.

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