What is the behemoth?

This is a Hebrew word and is now very generally believed to refer to the Hippopotamus. Job 40:15. Jehovah calls the attention of Job to this wonderful animal that he might see the wisdom and power of its Creator.

That is the reverse of the picture. God now takes up in the latter part of His discourse but two animals, and of an amphibious nature. They were neither among the beasts of the earth proper, nor were they birds of heaven. They were a mixture of animals that could enter upon the land, and could also betake themselves to the waters. And these are described under the name, first, of "behemoth," and secondly, of "leviathan."

"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; of course, with its own peculiarities; and they are very peculiar. But still it is very much more after the appearance and habits of an ox than it is of a horse. And these two creatures were well known, particularly on the Nile. Both of them were familiar in the waters of the Nile; and in Arabia in the desert, to which these speakers all belonged more or less — the edge of it or beginning of that which abutted on the desert — they were familiar by report, if not by actual visit to Egypt. They were familiar with these animals. They have been very much misunderstood by learned men. They have called them all sorts of strange things. For instance, many will have it that "behemoth" means an elephant, but when you read the account you will see it is very unlike an elephant, except that it is a big creature and with enormous strength, but beyond that, nothing.

"Behold now behemoth*, which I made with thee" [vers. 15 - 24). 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. "Lo, now, his strength is in his loins and his force is in the navel of his belly." I rather think that the expression in the 19th verse means, not that he makes the sword to approach to him to kill him, but that He that made him, made him a sword — made him a scythe; it is a scythe rather than a sword, and that is pretty much what the tusk of a hippopotamus is. It has great power in cleavings of all kinds, and in cutting. "Surely the mountains bring him forth food" — he can go to the mountain if he likes, in the neighbourhood of it — "where all the beasts of the field play. He lies under the shady trees" — that is where he loves to be — "in the covert of the reed, and fens."

Well now, in Job 41, comes a still longer description of "leviathan," and I understand that to be the crocodile. The crocodile is a very formidable beast. It is not so shy of the human kind; on the contrary, it preys upon men, women, and children, if it can get hold of them. It is not therefore at all so strange as the "behemoth" that we have been reading about.

Verses 15-24. The Lord asks Job to consider the behemoth; it is undoubtedly the hippopotamus (the Greek for 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 as thee." He eateth grass like an ox. He has tremendous strength in his loins and legs. He takes its rest under the shady trees and fears nothing:

BEHEMOTH, A GREAT LAND ANIMAL (vv.15-24)

Speaking of greatness and power, God draws attention now to a huge animal of great strength, which he calls "behemoth." Some 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. Some think the dinosaurs were destroyed in the flood, others, that some continued after the flood, and later became extinct.

But though behemoth ate grass, like an ox (v.15), his strength was greater than that of the lion, which feeds on meat of other animals. In behemoth every part of his anatomy contributed to his exceptional strength (vv.16-18), his loins, his body, legs and bones and even his tail. Strikingly, we are told, "he is the first of the ways of God" (v.19). God has created him as an object lesson for us of resistless strength. Only the God who made him can bring him down to nothing, symbolically to subject him to the judgment of the sword.

God has supplied food for him also (v.20), while he might lie down without fear of anything, though other beasts practically surrounded him. He is the very picture of self-confident power. Even the river may rage while he is at peace (v.23). He drinks in great amounts of water rather then be drowned in it.

We are brought thus to hearken to the application by Jehovah of the lesson of creature-strength. and pride, as exhibited and typified in the behemoth and leviathan. Our present section deals with the former of these creatures; the next, with the latter. The first is primarily a land animal, the second is chiefly aquatic. Together, they embrace, in type, all creation.

Students are agreed that the first beast is the hippopotamus, the model of resistless force and strength. It is one of Job's fellow-creatures, but how transcendently mighty. Every portion of his anatomy speaks of strength — loins and body, legs and bones, and even tail, are instinct with this power. He is thus a chief of God's creatures, excelling in strength. With his sharp sword-like teeth, furnished by his Creator, he mows down the grass like an ox — harmless too when not roused up, for the other beasts sport in the same pasture. He lies down in the shade, taking his ease; for he fears nothing, even if a raging flood should seek to engulf him. Can he be caught in a trap, like some lesser animal, or be held with a cord and ring through his nostrils?

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.

And yet he is but a creature, endowed by God, for His all-wise purposes, with superhuman strength. Let Job, let all who are tempted to trust in their own strength, whether of body, as here, or of heart and mind, consider this creature, self-sufficient and resistless. How puny will their own arm appear.

Some have thought this creature must typify Satan, in his character as primate among God's creatures (Ezek. 28), excelling in strength and pride. The same world be true as to leviathan, in the next chapter. Both beasts typify power and pride. It must be confessed therefore that it does not seem altogether fanciful to say with Wordsworth, "It seems probable that behemoth represents the Evil One acting in the animal and carnal elements of man's own constitution, and that leviathan symbolizes the Evil One energizing as his external enemy. Behemoth is the enemy within us; leviathan is the enemy without us."

But as "the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience," we may think of these creatures as figures of evil men energized and controlled by Satan, rather than Satan himself. Merely as a suggestion, it is asked whether in behemoth, the creature of earth, we do not have a figure of "the man of sin," the Beast that riseth out of the earth (2 Thess. 2; Rev. 13:11–18). He would stand thus for the Antichrist, the lawless one, who is the consummation of all evil in connection with the professed people of God.

Then his attention is drawn to two creatures of God, not now land-animals or birds, as in the former discourses, but amphibious, though there have not been wanting people of erudition who contend for the elephant as meant by Behemoth (Job 41:15), thinking that the name is a plural. majest. of hm;heb]. This, however, does not suit the description, particularly as to the tail; and the name is, as competent men believe, an Egyptian designation (p — ehe — mo, literally water ox) of the hippopotamus in Shemitic form. Again, the Leviathan here described (Job 41) seems to be beyond doubt, not the dolphin or the whale, as some learned men have argued, but the crocodile. So most have been convinced since Bochart (Hieroz. iii. pp. 705, etc., 737, etc.). It is impossible to conceive anything more graphic than the accounts of each, nor more forcible than the inference for Job or any other. If such the might of mere brutes, the effect of God's creative will, what folly to resist, censure, or even judge His ways!

One cannot doubt that there was divine design in the detailed description of the river-horse (or ox), on the one hand, and, on the other, in the still more minute particulars of the crocodile. To an upright mind like Job's, they were directly and powerfully suited to overwhelm him under the sense that He who could do everything deigned to make man the object of His ways on earth, and ordered all things to form him in submission of heart to Himself. It is not here the vast height, and depth, and extent, and variety of His arrangements in inanimate nature, or in the animal world, which, inexplicable as they may be to man, constitute so admirable a whole; but now two mighty objects, familiar to those near the Nile, which vindicate God's title as the only One who can judge absolutely in wisdom and goodness, as supreme in power and providence. Job therefore should be deeply ashamed of his self-sufficiency.

Huge as Behemoth is, he eats herbage like the ox. Unlike the elephant, which is vulnerable underneath, sinews are there of surpassing strength; like a cedar he bends his tail, and the sinews of his thighs are firmly knit together, his bones as copper and iron: yet, masterpiece as he is of God's ways, he is furnished only with a scythe-like tooth to graze the mountains, where all the beasts of the field gambol. And high ground is not where he loves to lie down, but under the lotuses, where the reed and the fen yield a covert, as the lotuses act as a shade, and the osiers too. No swelling floods startle him: he awaits with composure a Jordan rushing to his mouth. The closing words are difficult, and very different the impressions on the translators' minds, some regarding them not as a question, nor ironically, but as descriptive of his capture.

Thus, he is untameable and uncontrollable. Man could do nothing with him as he does with an ox or a horse. Also he was totally selfish: he was of no service to any man or animal. Would Job want to be like this, strong and self-confident, with no real object of being of help to others?

The character of behemoth is similar to that of many strong, capable men, men who know how to subdue others, but have no heart to be of help to them. Does this not remind us of 1 John 2:18, "as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come." Behemoth thus seems to be specially symbolical of Antichrist, since he is a land animal, for Antichrist will rise out of the land (of Israel), as Revelation 13: 11 shows us. The first beast of that chapter rises out of the sea (of the Gentile nations), and may well be typified by leviathan, of Job 41. It is God who has made him, though he refuses to recognise God.

Behemoth then is a powerful, uncontrollable beast which lives for itself. How weak then is man as contrasted with this beast in possession of such 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.

From verse 15 to the end of Job 41, the Lord makes further reference to the wonders of His creation. He called Job's attention to behemoth and to leviathan — probably the hippopotamus and the crocodile. They had brute strength but no human intelligence. It would be more easy to subdue them than to bring down proud man. In Job's day human inventions had hardly begun, so this was probably not so apparent as it is in our day, when these mighty creatures are easily subdued — but not so, proud man!

Behemoth resistless strength (vers. 15-24).