Facing Behemoth

God’s answer to Job comes in two parts. It is not that chapters 40-41 cover the same ground as 38-39 in more focused detail. Rather, they advance the argument by focusing on a complementary perspective. The key comes in Job 40:7-9 (ESV), “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. ⁸ Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? ⁹ Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?” In a way, this second round of speeches answers Job’s question from 9:24 (ESV), “The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; he covers the faces of its judges—if it is not he, who then is it?” Job has put God in the wrong, but God now reveals to Job that there are forces and persons that are well beyond the power of humanity. Indeed, God’s introductory remarks strike this note: “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. ¹¹ Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. … ¹⁴ Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you (Job 40:10-11, 14 ESV). However, theses powers and persons are still under God’s control, and the following descriptions of Behemoth and Leviathan underscore this crucial fact.

But a natural question arises: are Behemoth and Leviathan (merely) masters of the animal kingdom? Are these chapters descriptions of the hippopotamus and crocodile, for example, in poetic hyperbole? That could seem to be the case, but Robert Fyall points out that descriptions of material things do not need to rule out reference to spiritual or immaterial powers. He writes, “It is not that [Behemoth and Leviathan] are the hippopotamus and crocodile, but that these beasts in their size, ferocity and untameable nature are evidence of that dark power rooted in the universe itself which shadows all life.”[1] The balance of this reflection dives into the relationship between the material and immaterial in the description of Behemoth (Job 40:15-24).

That God’s speech refers to a member of the animal kingdom is plain enough from the description, and it is not unreasonable to believe that this description would conjure up visions of the hippopotamus. But closer inspection shows us that more is going on under the surface. In the first place, Behemoth is a transliteration of the Hebrew word, which is the plural form of the generic noun for land animals as opposed to flying or swimming creatures. That is to say, Behemoth does not designate a specific animal but the prototypical land animal. Right away, we might be surprised that the lion is not referenced, for it is often described in biblical poetry as the land animal without equal. This is simply an indication that we are dealing with something more than what is presented on the surface. And, in that case, references to the hippopotamus’ diet (“he eats grass like cattle”) can do double duty as veiled references to the insatiable appetite of something more sinister. Consider, for example, the first line of Prov 27:20: “Sheol and Abaddon are not satisfied…” If, as Robert Fyall argues,[2] Behemoth is a cipher for Death, then “he eats grass like cattle” begins to take on the shade of the insatiable appetite of Death, which is humanly uncontrollable but always under the sovereign dominion of God.

One might object that Death is not a creation in the same sense as the hippopotamus, but both vv15 and 19 say that this prototypical animal is a creature. Does the immaterial analogy break down at this point? One response could be that the whole thrust of Job 40-41 is that God has no equal, and so a binary situation is set forth. There is either the Creator or the creature. While there is certainly an asymmetry in the creation of man or river horse, on the one hand, and the origin of death, on the other, both fall on the side of creation when compared with the only Creator. Moreover, Death is personified elsewhere in Scripture (cf. Hos 13:14; 1 Cor 15:55; Rev 20:14). So long as we acknowledge the asymmetry in origins between the material thing and the immaterial force to which it refers, then the analogy is preserved and the force of the poetic language remains.

In the end, the point that Job has to get is that just like the peak of animal power is untameable by man, so there are powers and persons beyond his control—yet never beyond God’s control.

[1] Robert S. Fyall, Now My Eyes Have Seen You: Images of Creation and Evil in the Book of Job, NSBT 12 (InterVarsity Press, 2002), 127.

[2] Fyall, Now My Eyes Have Seen You, 133.