Job 40:17

"Behold now behemoth, which I made with you" — when I made you I made him. "He eats grass as an ox." I have, therefore, good reason for saying that it is a river-ox, and not at all a river-horse.

Some have thought this refers to a hippopotamus, but that animal has a small tail, while behemoth "makes his tail stiff like a cedar" (v.17). Perhaps this animal has now become extinct, for its tail seems to resemble that of a dinosaur.

Every portion of his anatomy speaks of strength — loins and body, legs and bones, and even tail, are alive with this power. So he is a chief of God's creatures, excelling in strength. His Creator gave him sharp, sword-like teeth, and with them he mows down the grass like an ox. He is harmless too when nothing stirs him up, since the other animals play beside him in the same pasture.

In other words, he is an untamable, uncontrollable beast. He is of no use for man's service. The entire description gives the impression of absolute power used for utterly selfish ends. It lives for itself, refusing to yield its strength to the service of others.

How weak man is compared with this beast and its marvellous strength! Yet it is only a beast and Job is a man. How abominable then must Job's pride and boasting appear in the sight of the Lord.

And yet he is only a creature. God gave him superhuman strength for His own all-wise purposes. Let Job, and everyone tempted to trust his own strength, look at this creature, self-sufficient and unstoppable. That strength may be strength of body, as here, or of heart and mind. How puny their own arm will look.

Note the striking words, "he is the first of the ways of God" (v.19). God created him as an object lesson for us of unstoppable strength. Only the God who made him can bring him down to nothing — a picture of putting him under the judgment of the sword.

Both beasts stand for power and pride. So it does not seem entirely far-fetched to agree with another commentator, Wordsworth: "It seems probable that behemoth represents the Evil One at work in the animal and fleshly parts of man's own make-up, and that leviathan pictures the Evil One at work as the enemy outside him. Behemoth is the enemy inside us; leviathan is the enemy outside us."

To Job, behemoth would stand for that creature of pride which thrives among people who profess to belong to God. In the pride of his own self-righteousness, "proclaiming himself to be God," he would catch glimpses of this evil thing. One day it would grow into a full and hideous falling away from God. What more dreadful exposure of the evil of pride could he, or we, have? Self-righteousness, self-seeking, pride of conduct or of character, denies its need of Christ and of God. Such is sin in the flesh — incorrigible and hideous. Who can subdue it or change its nature?

And yet behemoth is controlled, though not by man. God is over all... The Spirit will control the flesh, and while He lives in the Church He does not allow evil to develop fully. In a smaller way too, the Spirit controls and holds back the activity of the flesh. "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh."