Job 40:15 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Job 40:15

Comments

The word ‘Behemoth’ is the plural of the Hebrew word meaning beast, animal – those creatures made on the sixth day along with mankind – but it is used to describe a single particular kind. The name perhaps comes from the fact that this creature was, as God says here, ‘the chief of the ways of God’, the greatest of the land animals that God has made, and is certainly known to Job, though precisely what it was does not really matter. The lesson for Job is that the qualities that God values can be pictured in this creature. The words ‘which I made with thee’ indicate that the Lord is making a comparison between Job and this animal. Behemoth has many admirable qualities which Job lacks. Of course this is a beast and not a man, and therefore the comparison demands that we translate his physical attributes into the equivalent spiritual attributes which ought to be found in Job. This creature can be quite humble, lowly, a mere grass eater, and yet strong. Where is Job’s strength? He is inclined to think that strength is a product of prowess? But no, God admires strength from humility. He is a mere grass-eater, with no power of reason, and yet even so, look at his strength. He could not join the great literary circle to which Job belonged, nor his circle of wealth, and yet in many ways he is more worthy of God than Job. ‘Where is your strength, Job?’ – that is the implication. ‘You are not very strong, are you?’ Of course, Job had endured terrible suffering, and we dare not be smug as we consider him, but here is the application: what God desires from his people is the strength which comes by being prayerful, trusting people, who never lose sight of the loving purposes of God.‘He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones [or his thighs] are wrapped together’. The apparently solid worth of Behemoth is genuine; it is not just skin deep. His strength goes deep into his body. ‘His bones are as strong pieces of brass.’ In the same way Job’s ‘piety’ must be deep within him and not just be on the surface. Behemoth is closely knit and immovable. His bones like bars of iron; capable of bearing tremendous pressure without bending to it. He is the most substantial of creatures. He is a picture of fearlessness, invincibility, tranquillity. Only ‘he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.’ Human beings may kill or capture many other creatures, but not his one. They know better than to try.

Application

We need our egos, our comforts, our helps, but this creature does not seem to be dependent in any way on the world around it. He is unafraid of predators. Christian people ought to be less affected by the trials of life than those in the world. This beast is seen as a picture of what we should be, self-sufficient in the right sense, not reliant on circumstances, crutches and aids, but on God.

Questions

Some think that this is a mythical creature, but where would the lesson be in that, and why are such specific details of his anatomy referred to, which Job is expected to confirm? The KJV shrewdly carries over the Hebrew into English, but the people of God want to know what this is. Barnes tells us that some of the older exegetes understood it to be the hippopotamus, others the elephant or giant mammoth. Some say the word is very similar to an Egyptian word meaning water ox. Current writers seem to favour some form of now extinct dinosaur. Whatever it is, it is an enormously strong herbivorous beast. Most of the dinosaurs were herbivores though a smaller percentage of them were meat-eaters. They had enormous strength in their back legs, some being able to support their vast weight entirely on these hind legs and raise their front limbs off the ground. Their enormous hips were proportional to their body size and they had massively strong muscles to move their great bulk with ease. Many had powerful tails which balanced the front part of their body and allowed them to pivot around their hind quarters. The tail indeed resembled a cedar tree in its girth and the relatively puny tail of the hippopotamus does not match what is described here. The bones of some of these great creatures from the past are on display in the world’s museums, and they are indeed like beams of bronze for size and strength, dwarfing anything found in man or in the domesticated animals. Everything about them is on a vast scale so that their ribs almost appear to be non-living artefacts and not bones at all. We look at them and wonder how they could have grown or been part of a living and moving creature. Obviously those who believe that the dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago and long before man arose, rule out the possibility that man co-existed with living dinosaurs, and therefore they would exclude dinosaurs as candidates here. But the Scriptures teach that all creatures were made by God at the same time and therefore all co-existed together at some point in the past.

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Job 40:15 Commentary and Bible Study