Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly.
God points Job to one huge beast, behemoth, and tells him to look at where its power sits. The question behind it is personal. If Job cannot match this creature, why is he arguing with the God who made it?
Which creature is behemoth
Commentators differ over which animal this is. One writer names the hippopotamus and corrects the name itself:
William Kelly"Behemoth" means what is called the hippopotamus. It ought not to be called a river-horse at all, which is what "hippopotamus" means. It is a river-ox. It is like an ox rather than a horse... Many claim that "behemoth" means an elephant. But read the account and you will see it is very unlike an elephant. The one likeness is that it is a big creature with enormous strength, and beyond that, nothing.
Others think the details of the description do not fit any animal alive today:
Leslie M. GrantSome have thought this refers to a hippopotamus. But that animal has a small tail, while behemoth "moves his tail like a cedar" (v.17). Perhaps this animal has now become extinct, for its tail seems to resemble that of a dinosaur.
Why the loins
Other passages use the same word for the loins. One writer gathers them, using an older translation that keeps the word "loins" throughout:
Truth & Testimony"Gird up now your loins like a man", God said to Job, twice, and to others also. Elijah girded up his loins and ran before Ahab (1 Kings 18:46). There are many other references, Behemoth for example... "his strength in his loins" (Job 40:16). But exactly the same word is used of the woman of worth (Proverbs 31:17)... Taken together they certainly confirm what we have always heard, that the loins are the seat of strength.
The verse names the loins and the belly. The description that follows spreads the same note over the whole animal:
Samuel RidoutEvery part of his body speaks of strength — loins and body, legs and bones, even tail, are alive with this power... His Creator gave him sharp sword-like teeth, and with them he mows down the grass like an ox. He is harmless too when not stirred up, for the other beasts play in the same pasture.
Only a creature
God sets this beast beside Job, and the comparison is the sting:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinBehemoth then is a powerful, uncontrollable beast which lives for itself. How weak then is man compared with this beast and its marvellous strength. Yet it is only a beast and Job is a man. How detestable then must Job's pride and boasting appear in the sight of the Lord.
Strength that serves nobody
Strength on this scale might sound admirable. Notice what it is worth to anyone else:
Samuel RidoutHe is an untameable, uncontrollable beast. He is of no use for man's service. The whole description gives one impression — absolute power used for utterly selfish ends. It lives for itself, refusing to yield its strength to the service of others.
Strength you trust in
The same writer turns the picture on the reader:
Samuel RidoutAnd yet he is only a creature, given superhuman strength by God for His all-wise purposes. Let Job consider this creature, self-sufficient and unstoppable. Let all who are tempted to trust in their own strength consider him too, whether strength of body, as here, or of heart and mind. How puny their own arm will appear.
Readings of the symbol
Some writers see more than an animal here, and they do not agree on what. One starts from the kind of man behemoth resembles:
Leslie M. GrantThe character of behemoth is like that of many strong, capable men. They know how to subdue others, but have no heart to help them... So behemoth seems to be specially symbolic of Antichrist. He is a land animal, and Antichrist will rise out of the land (of Israel), as Revelation 13:11 shows us... It is God who has made him, though he refuses to recognise God.
Another sees the two beasts of chapters 40 and 41 as pictures of evil working in two directions:
Samuel RidoutBehemoth is the enemy within us; leviathan is the enemy without us.
Summary
- Made — behemoth is no rival to God. He is a creature God made, and that is what humbles Job.
- Strong — Scripture treats the loins as the seat of strength. Here every part, from bones to tail, says the same.
- Selfish — this strength serves no one. It cannot be tamed and lives only for itself.
- Searching — God sets the beast before everyone who trusts his own strength, of body or of mind. Their own arm looks small.
- Symbolic — commentators read the creature further. Some see a picture of Antichrist, others evil at work inside a man. All agree God made him.