SUMMARY
God describes BehemothA behemoth is a large swamp monster. Such a beast, often identified as a hippopotamus, is part of the narrative in the book of Job where the Lord claims to have created both behemoth and Job himself. More, a primeval land creature.
ANALYSIS
Behemoth, the creature God describes at the beginning of the second whirlwind speech, is unknown in the Bible outside of the book of Job (though the later apocryphal book, 1 Enoch, apparently influenced by Job, speaks of Behemoth). Behemoth is a land creature who is equally at home in the river and wetlands. He is fearsome and strong, his bones like bronze and his limbs like iron (40:18). This description reminds many readers of the hippopotamus, though a kind of primordial hippopotamus who is “the first of the great acts of God” (40:19).
God invites Job to regard Behemoth as something of an equal, “Look at Behemoth, which I made just as I made you” (40:15). The Hebrew literally says, “Look at Behemoth, which I made with you.” It is difficult to know what to make of this statement, but at the least it implies a kind of parity between Job and Behemoth. This creature, like the wild animals of the previous speech, is not under Job’s control. Job cannot use it for his own gain. He cannot bend it to his will.
This is a lesson particularly relevant to our modern age, when we know the often-deleterious effect humanity has had on the rest of God’s creatures. God seems to take delight in exactly those creatures and places outside of human control. They are valuable because they are God’s creations, not because of any use humanity might make of them. As Pope Francis says about the animals in his papal encyclical Laudato Si, “We can speak of the priority of being over that of being useful” [Pope Francis, Laudato Si, 69].
