“He is the first of the works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword!
God answers Job by pointing him to a single animal — behemoth — and calls it the first of His works, then adds a puzzling line about a sword. Why answer a suffering man with a beast, and whose sword is it?
The Title: First of God's Ways
The phrase marks this creature out as the peak of what God made among the animals. Other translations read "the chief of God's ways" where the ESV has "the first of the works of God." One writer takes it as a rank of greatness:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe Lord asks Job to consider the behemoth. It is certainly the hippopotamus (the Greek name means river-horse). A description of this powerful beast follows. He calls the behemoth the "chief of the ways of God," one of His greatest works in animal creation. The behemoth is one of Job's fellow-creatures, "which I made along with you."
The title is not for admiration only. It is teaching material:
Leslie M. GrantIn behemoth every part of his body added to his exceptional strength (vv.16-18) — his loins, his body, his legs and bones, and even his tail. The text says of him, "he is the first of the ways of God" (v.19). God has created him as an object lesson for us of strength that nothing can resist. Only the God who made him can bring him down to nothing, and so, as a picture, put him under the judgment of the sword.
The Sword: Two Readings
Commentators differ on the second half of the verse. Grant, above, reads it as God's power to destroy what He made. Another writer argues the sword is not aimed at the beast but given to it:
William KellyI think the words in verse 19 do not mean that God brings the sword near to kill him. They mean that the One who made him gave him a sword — really a scythe. It is a scythe more than a sword, and that is pretty much what the tusk of a hippopotamus is. It has great power for splitting things of all kinds, and for cutting.
On either reading the weapon comes from the Maker's hand.
The Lesson: Strength That Shames Job's Own
God made this creature alongside Job. That comparison is the point of the whole description:
Samuel RidoutAnd yet he is only a creature. God gave him strength greater than any man's, for His own all-wise purposes. Let Job look at this creature, self-sufficient and unstoppable. Let everyone look who is tempted to trust his own strength — strength of body, as here, or of heart and mind. How weak their own arm will look then.
The comparison does not stop at strength. It reaches Job's pride:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinSo behemoth is a powerful, uncontrollable beast that lives for itself. How weak man looks next to this beast with its amazing strength! Yet it is only a beast, and Job is a man. How hateful, then, Job's pride and boasting must look to the Lord.
The Character: Power Without Service
Being first among God's works is not the same as being useful. This creature's greatness is turned inward:
Samuel RidoutIn 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.
That turns into a question for the man listening — and for the reader:
Leslie M. GrantSo he is untameable and uncontrollable. Man could do nothing with him, as he does with an ox or a horse. He was also completely selfish: he was of no use to any man or animal. Would Job want to be like this — strong and self-confident, with no real aim of helping others?
The Wider Picture: A Figure of Pride
Some see more than an animal here, though only as a picture, not a fixed identification:
Samuel RidoutSome have thought this creature must stand for Satan, in his character as the chief of God's creatures (Ezek. 28), outstanding in strength and pride. The same would be true of leviathan, in the next chapter. Both beasts stand for power and pride.
Another writer applies this same verse to the worst evil the Bible predicts. Even that evil is still something God made:
Numerical Bible NotesAntichrist himself is still a creature of God and in His hand, with all the powers and abilities he twists to his own ruin. As God says of behemoth (Job 40:19), "the One who made him can bring His sword near to him."
Summary
- Made. God calls behemoth the first of His works — one of His greatest animals, and Job's fellow-creature.
- Armed. Its weapon comes from its Maker. Commentators differ: is the sword the tusk God gave it, or the judgment God can bring against it?
- Unstoppable. God set behemoth before Job as an object lesson in strength nothing can resist. Anyone who trusts his own arm — body, heart or mind — should see how small it is.
- Selfish. All that power serves no one: untameable, of no use to man or beast, living only for itself.
- Still a creature. However great or evil the strength — even Antichrist's — it remains made, and in the hand of the One who made it.