Leviathan was held that God originally produced a male and a female leviathan, but lest in multiplying the species should destroy the world, he slew the female, reserving her flesh for the banquet that will be given to the righteous on the advent of the Messiah. Rashi's commentary on repeats the tradition: the...sea monsters: The great fish in the sea, and in the words of the Aggadah (B.B. 74b), this refers to the Leviathan and its mate, for He created them male and female, and He slew the female and salted her away for the righteous in the future, for if
Biblical allusions in Shakespeare "did not prevent him from making full use of the Bible in dramatizing his secular sources and thus infusing into them a Biblical meaning." Milward continues that, in writing his plays (in particular, the tragedies), Shakespeare "shows the universal relevance of the Bible both to the reality of human life 'in this harsh world' and to its ideal in the heart of God." Steven Marx suggests "a thorough familiarity with the Scriptures" is a prerequisite to understanding the Biblical references in the plays, and that the plays' references to the Bible "illuminate fresh and surprising meanings in the biblical text."