(BtL) Mythical Land Beasts
Borrowed with permission from chapter 3 of Jamin Bradley's book, Kaiju of Biblical Proportions.
Behemoth
Now that we’ve got a pretty good grip on what a chaos creature is, it won’t take us too long to discuss Behemoth—especially given the fact that this kaiju is only mentioned once in the Bible, right before Job’s long poem about Leviathan.
As you’ll recall, scholars were fairly united on the idea that Leviathan in Job was a crocodile. Therefore, it shouldn’t surprise us that the same people have tried to identify Behemoth as a modern day animal as well. But before we reveal their speculation, let’s play another game and see if we can guess what animal they think it is based on Job’s description.
“Behold, Behemoth,
which I made as I made you;
he eats grass like an ox.
Behold, his strength in his loins,
and his power in the muscles of his belly.
He makes his tail stiff like a cedar;
the sinews of his thighs are knit together.
His bones are tubes of bronze,
his limbs like bars of iron.“He is the first of the works of God;
let him who made him bring near his sword!
For the mountains yield food for him
where all the wild beasts play.
Under the lotus plants he lies,
in the shelter of the reeds and in the marsh.
For his shade the lotus trees cover him;
the willows of the brook surround him.
Behold, if the river is turbulent he is not frightened;
he is confident though Jordan rushes against his mouth.
Can one take him by his eyes,
or pierce his nose with a snare? (Job 40:15-24)
Now that you’ve had a chance to think it over, what real life creature that still exists today might you consider this to be? If you guessed hippopotamus, you’re correct! If you guessed elephant, you’re synced up with scholars for a second opinion.
As for the hippo, the thought isn’t entirely without its merits. Just as there are a few lines of Job’s poem about Leviathan that resonate with a crocodile, so there are several lines in Job’s poem about Behemoth that resonate with the hippo. If there weren’t, the comparison wouldn’t be made. Roy B. Zuck points out the following similarities:
(1) The hippo is herbivorous (it feeds on grass like an ox, v. 15). Therefore wild animals do not fear being attacked by it (v. 20). (2) It has massive strength in its loins, stomach muscles … tail … thighs, metallike bones and limbs (vv. 16–18)…. [Its] stomach muscles are particularly strong and thick…. (3) The hippopotamus was the largest of the animals known in the ancient Near East (he ranks first among the works of God, v. 19)…. (4) The hippo is difficult if not impossible to kill with a mere hand sword. The words His Maker can approach him with His sword (v. 19) suggest that only God dare approach the beast for hand combat. Nor can he be captured or harpooned when only his eyes or nose show above the water (v. 24). (5) As a hippopotamus lies hidden … in the marsh.… the stream, and the river (vv. 21–23), its sustenance (perhaps vegetation) floats down from the hills (v. 20). This huge creature is undistrubed by river turbulence for the rivers are his habitat (v. 23).1
On top of all of this, one of the home-run points scholars use to identify Behemoth as a hippo is the proposition that the word Behemoth is “a Hebraized form of the Egyptian p-ehe-mau, ‘the water-ox’ (p=the, ehe=ox, mau or mou=water),” which certainly brings to mind an image that the hippo can easily fit.2 However, as B. F. Batto points out, it has since been proved that “that no such term existed in Egyptian or Coptic,” but despite that, “the identification of Behemoth with the hippopotamus has persisted, though now often with a mythic overlay.”3
But because there are occasional connections, it could always be possible that Job is referencing mythical creatures by writing extravagant poetry about real creatures he has seen.4 But even if this is the case, in the end, the real creature being referenced (i.e. the hippo or the crocodile) is mostly serving as a segue into something much bigger and more crucial to Job’s point.
But what’s odd about forcing Behemoth to fit the shape of a hippo is that doing so is a relatively new idea. It wasn’t until the seventeenth century that the hippo was proposed for Job’s description and many people throughout ancient times thought it to be more of a mythical creature as you might suspect yourself. We’ll look at its mythicality later in this chapter, but for now let’s address a few characteristics from Job’s poem that don’t apply to the hippo.
A Tail Stiff Like Cedar
If there’s one thing a hippo is not known for, it’s a long and glorious tail. We wouldn’t even call such a statement, “poetic hyperbole,” but rather, “sarcastic comedy,” which doesn’t quite fit what this poem is going for. One scholar points out that the hippo’s “tail stiffens when the animal is frightened or is running,”5 but that seems like an odd thing to make reference to, especially given the fact that Job is trying to build it up as a powerful creature that few can compare with, and not a terrified one.
The hippo looks even more ridiculous as Behemoth’s identity when we face the fact that cedars are quite large.
The average height of such cedars is about eighty-five feet, though some have measured over one hundred feet. In trunk circumference the cedar may reach forty feet. Not infrequently the tree’s horizontal spread of branches equals its height.6
Attaching such a description to the hippopotamus’ tail is—let’s just be honest—hilarious. However, the idea of a mythical chaos creature fits just fine with each line Job gives.
Again, this creature is meant to be seen as so powerful, that no human being could go up against it. When God asks the rhetorical question, “Can one take him by his eyes, or pierce his nose with a snare?” (Job 40:24), the implied answer is, “No, only God could do that”—just as only God could kill Leviathan. In antiquity, humans proved that they could kill hippos, as evidenced by an “Egyptian festival where a hippopotamus was ritually slain, symbolic of pharaoh’s enemies.”7 Therefore, it’s not accurate to say that humans didn’t stand a chance against Behemoth if he was was a hippo.
While this mythical creature seems a bit more docile than Leviathan, this only matches Job’s progression; for Leviathan is the last creature God describes, and therefore it’s meant to be the climax of God’s work. For “God shows that if Job cannot bring under control the lower animals (of which he selects the two most striking….), much less is he capable of governing the world.”8
But a stiff cedar-like tail is not the only description in Job’s poem that better matches a chaos creature over a hippo.
First of the Works of God
With a chaos creature already in mind, our sensors go off when we see Job call Behemoth the “first of the works of God.” This is because we’re already thinking of Behemoth being a creature from a primeval time. Here we might even be willing to extend Job some poetic license and expect that he means, “a creature from a really, really long time ago.”
After all, God has referenced a lot of creatures we still recognize today throughout Job 28-40, including lions, ravens, goats, calves, donkeys, ostriches, horses, locusts, hawks, and eagles. With this as our context, it makes sense for Job to mean that Behemoth is the “first of the works of God,” in the sense that it was created before all other creatures, including these ones. Job is thinking way, way back. He’s considering the chaos myths of old. And while we may not fully know what chaos myth Job is quoting, we recognize the substance of his poem.
To continue to view Behemoth as a hippo creates for a strange line here. Why did Job think the hippo was the first thing God made? The work-around for some is that, on the sixth day, “God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind” (Gen 1:25). Since a hippo is a beast of sorts, it would have come towards the beginning of creation in this sentence. Others would reiterate what Zuck said earlier and say that, “‘First’ does not mean that chronologically the behemoth was the first to be created but that it is the chief or mightiest of the animals.”9
Could we extend Job some poetic license here and allow ourselves to agree with such arguments? Yes, but why? Again, Behemoth’s role as a chaos creature makes great light of all of Job’s statements and his context. It even makes sense of Job’s following statement, which is not a tangent, but a direct connection in his line of thought: Behemoth “is the first of the works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword!” (Job 40:19, emphasis mine).
While some translate this passage to say “the One who made it has furnished it with a sword,”10 the chaos creature motif lets us easily see the literal translation, “let him who made him bring near his sword.” The sword is not the hippo’s teeth, but Yahweh’s weapon. Behemoth is a chaos creature—the first of the works of God—and God, who made this creature, will slay him. Immediately our minds go back to Isaiah 27:1.
In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
While Job’s reference to God fighting Behemoth with a sword could be a direct reference to an ancient story Job is referencing, we know that it doesn’t have to be; for we’ve already seen that chaos creatures in the Bible tend to overlap greatly. A callout to Leviathan can also easily be a callout to Rahab and vice versa. These beings are different, but also similar enough that they can be used interchangeably. And so, with Job’s reference to God stabbing Behemoth, we now see him join the overlapping world of the other chaos creatures.
Arshu
While all of these kaiju can be lumped together, is there anything unique enough about Behemoth to set him apart from the others? We imagine that there had to be some reason since Job separated him from Rahab and Leviathan.
It’s a bit difficult to find Behemoth in other literature, since the word Behemoth is the English spelling of the “plural of a common [Hebrew] word meaning ‘animal’ or ‘beast.’ In the singular it is sometimes used to refer to cattle or domestic animals.”11 That being said, the word is a bit generic and therefore hard to pinpoint on other characters.
But while we don’t find a “Behemoth” in other ancient literature, per se, we do find a connection to a creature related to Leviathan. This makes sense, given that Job follows a train of thought from Behemoth, the lesser threat in chapter 40, to Leviathan, the bigger threat in chapter 41.
The creature we are referring to here is Arshu, a bovine-like being related to the stories of Baal. Batto points out the connection, drawing our attention to the fact that just as “the ox-like Behemoth is paired with the sea-dragon Leviathan [in Job], so at Ugarit El’s calf…. Arshu is paired with seven-headed sea-dragon.”12 Add to this the fact that the goddess Anat takes credit for running them both through with a sword and you have yet another connection where God is usurping the power and authority attributed to another deity and placing it upon Himself. And so now we have a connection that makes sense. Behemoth and Leviathan are of a similar theme and story, but different enough to be seen as independent entities.
But wait a minute, was Arshu just identified as a cow-like-land-creature? Can we see Job’s description in that light? After all, much of Job’s poem positions him by water, “under the lotus plant.” However, these waters are not as deep as we might be imagining. As Reyburn notes,
Under the lotus seems to depict the animal submerged in the water, but this is most likely inaccurate. The word translated as lotus plants…. refers, not to the Egyptian water lily, but to a thorny tree found along the eastern Mediterranean and in North Africa. It flourishes in damp hot areas and is abundant around the Sea of Galilee…. Reeds translates a common term for tall grass with thick stems which grow in marshy ground…. Marsh is also found in 8:11 and refers to a low-lying area covered by shallow water and grasses.13
Now that we’ve done some geographical landscaping, we begin to see this calf-like creature to be much more of a land animal than perhaps we first thought it was (though it’s still true that Job pictured it being able to take on strong river currents with its head mostly submerged—an image very apt to make us think of a hippo). But regardless of how we want to view it, one thing is for sure: The Jews closer to Jesus’ time easily thought of Behemoth as a land creature.
Intertestamental References
In the second temple period, Leviathan and Behemoth were beasts that complimented each other in their differences. In the minds of these Jews, Leviathan was an enormous water creature and Behemoth was an enormous land creature. Such ideology is especially elaborated on in places like 2 Esdras 6:47-53 where the Genesis creation story is retold with a twist.
On the fifth day you commanded the seventh part, where the water had been gathered together, to bring forth living creatures, birds, and fishes; and so it was done. The dumb and lifeless water produced living creatures, as it was commanded, so that therefore the nations might declare your wondrous works.14
Then you kept in existence two living creatures; the one you called Behemoth and the name of the other Leviathan. And you separated one from the other, for the seventh part where the water had been gathered together could not hold them both. And you gave Behemoth one of the parts that had been dried up on the third day, to live in it, where there are a thousand mountains; but to Leviathan you gave the seventh part, the watery part; and you have kept them to be eaten by whom you wish, and when you wish.
On the sixth day you commanded the earth to bring forth before you cattle, wild animals, and creeping things; and over these you placed Adam, as ruler over all the works that you had made; and from him we have all come, the people whom you have chosen. (NRSV)
Of special interest here is that we have 2 Esdras noting that God, “kept in existence two living creatures”; as though to imply that they had existed before God had created the fish and the birds on the fifth day, but at least definitely before He created all of the land animals on the sixth day. The book of 2 Baruch tries to solidify that they were “created on the fifth day of creation” (2 Bar 29:4), which would still fit Job’s idea that they were the “first of the works of God,” if he meant to say they were the very first creatures God made when he started to create the first animals on the fifth day. The book of 1 Enoch doesn’t necessarily attest to which day of creation they were created on, but it does further elaborate that Leviathan was thought to be a female and Behemoth a male and agrees that they were divided by water and land (1 En 60:7-10).
The Second Beast
While some might think such books aren’t helpful in discerning anything about these creatures since they’re not legitimate books of the Bible, others would recognize that their words most likely effected the thinking of those who wrote the books of our Bible. The book of Revelation, for example, seems influenced by what we just learned.
We’ve already linked Leviathan to the first beast of Revelation 13, because Leviathan had seven heads just like the first beast did. Both of these chaos creatures were also related to the sea, so we saw that feature as well. And now that we’ve seen that intertestamental literature had in mind the existence of a water beast and a land beast, our eyes light up at the fact that the second beast of Revelation was found “rising out of the earth” (Rev 13:11). Other simple connections might be made as well, including the fact that (as we saw earlier) Behemoth is basically Hebrew for the word “beast.” Furthermore, we could also note that the Behemoth-like beast is not quite as great as the Leviathan-like beast. These are some very intriguing connections, to be sure.
Revelation frames these two kaiju as God’s enemy. Not only do they stand for everything that is anti-Christ, but they are literally in league with the devil. It’s the dragon identified as Satan that they ultimately work for. Therefore, it’s not surprising that church leaders throughout the ages have drawn comparisons between creatures like Behemoth and Satan.15 Behemoth, like Leviathan, represents the enemy. In fact, some commentators have viewed the dragon and the two beasts of Revelation “as a kind of a demonic parody of the divine Trinity.”16
But their blasphemy has already been ended and will be ended once and for all. For whether land beast or water beast, they are still nothing in comparison to God—and He will slay them with His sword.
Conclusion
There’s not a lot in the Bible about Behemoth and his image evolves over time as later writers add in details. In the end, the takeaways remain the same as the other beasts. Behemoth, like Leviathan and Rahab, is a chaos creature. He has both already lost and will lose. He works with Satan and may even be a direct symbol of Satan himself. He’s a beast that will be brought down to nothing as God shows his ultimate power over chaos and subdues it until only order is left.
Footnotes
1 Zuck, Roy B. “Job.” The Bible Knowledge Commentary, pp. 771–772.
2 Lange, John Peter et al. A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Job. Bellingham, Logos Bible Software, 2008, p. 619.
3 Batto, B. F. “Behemoth.” Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, p. 166.
4 Some scholars have even seen Behemoth and Leviathan as a combination of “the naturalistic (hippopotamus); the mythic (primeval evil in the form of the god Seth, the enemy of the creator); and the historical (political enemies, historical powers)” (Ibid. p. 167). Since we have seen these three general themes at work in the kaiju we’ve addressed, this is plausible.
5 Zuck, Roy B. “Job.” The Bible Knowledge Commentary, p. 772.
6 Hamilton, Victor P. “160 ארז.” Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke. Chicago, Moody Press, 1999, p. 70.
7 Matthews, “Job 40:15–24,” The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament.
8 Jamieson, Robert, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown. Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible. Vol. 1. Oak Harbor, Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, p. 343.
9 Alden, Robert L, Job, p. 397.
10 The NET Bible First Edition, Biblical Studies Press, 2005.
11 Reyburn, A Handbook on the Book of Job.
12 Batto, B. F., “Behemoth,” DDD, p. 168.
13 Reyburn, A Handbook on the Book of Job, p. 748.
14 Perhaps a statement intentionally made against the idea of other beings like Apsu and Tiamat existing and having anything to do with creation?
15 Lange, A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Job, p. 620.
16 Fee, Gordon D., Revelation, p. 179.