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Wednesday 4/10/24
Title: Look at the Behemoth which I made along with you
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Look at the Behemoth which I made along with you
Last week Elihu finished his verbal conditioning of Job followed by God challenging Job to face Him like a man as He questions him. During which time God lays out a three tiered argument before Job – statements leading to questions which Job had no hope of answering.
In the first argument, God begins to confront Job’s statements regarding justice. Over the months Job had several times when he spoke as if he were the standard and the embodiment of justice itself. So God addressed this by reminding Job of his creatureness asking him questions regarding the creation of the world and the decision making process for establishing how the natural world functions.
God’s second confrontation picks up where He left off, still drawing out Job’s ignorance of the natural world and the animals in it. God explains in simple terms His understanding of animals, their abilities and domains which He has assigned to them. All of this to illustrate His power, omniscience and to address to what degree He is intimately involved in the existence and provisions of His creation.
He not only knows them – He made them, even down to the habitations He created for them, the food they eat, the way they give birth, the way they care for their young – everything is due to Him!
The intended effect was to cause Job to consider the plausibility of God knowing all of this and yet failing to understand (and handle with justice) matters which involve mankind who most closely bear His image!
This week we begin with God confronting the argument by which Job had contended with God in matters of justice.
He hypothetically invites Job to take the throne, scepter and crown for a moment and see if he can rightly judge all humanity for a moment.
After this brief but humbling consideration Job offers his first response to God in which he begins to embrace his insignificance in comparison to God. He is beginning to see his words as prideful and without understanding and so admits that it would be better for him to stop speaking altogether.
It is important to understand that God did not want Job to feel insignificant because such is NOT true. He is a creation of God and therefore was and is in God’s heart – that alone gives him value and significance. Furthermore Job, as a human, is an image bearer of God – the height of God’s creation which too offers him tremendous significance. Nevertheless, Job’s heart told him the truth. Even with all of these things being true, in comparison to the One Who created him, meaning apart from Him – Job has no definition whatsoever. His very existence is predicated on the pre-existence of God Who alone gives us value. This was a significant step in the right direction for Job’s heart!
After this God drives the point home by continuing on to His third and final questioning of Job which zeros in on two extraordinary creatures. These two creatures are ones which could escape nobody’s notice. They are without question two of the most extreme examples of God’s handiwork in the whole of the animal kingdom.
Again God’s purpose in all of this was to bring Job to a perfect place of humility before Him so that He might be gracious to him and restore him.
Job 40:1-24,
“(1) The LORD answered Job:
(2) Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? Let him who argues with God give an answer.
(3) Then Job answered the LORD:
(4) I am so insignificant. How can I answer You?
I place my hand over my mouth.
(5) I have spoken once, and I will not reply; twice, but now I can add nothing.
(6) Then the LORD answered Job from the whirlwind:
(7) Get ready to answer Me like a man; When I question you, you will inform Me.
(8) Would you really challenge My justice?
Would you declare Me guilty to justify yourself?
(9) Do you have an arm like God’s?
Can you thunder with a voice like His?
(10) Adorn yourself with majesty and splendor, and clothe yourself with honor and glory.
(11) Unleash your raging anger; look on every proud person and humiliate him.
(12) Look on every proud person and humble him; trample the wicked where they stand. (13) Hide them together in the dust; imprison them in the grave.
(14) Then I will confess to you that your own right hand can deliver you.”
“(15) Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you. He eats grass like an ox.
(16) Look at the strength of his loins and the power in the muscles of his belly.
(17) He stiffens his tail like a cedar tree; the tendons of his thighs are woven firmly together.
(18) His bones are bronze tubes; his limbs are like iron rods.
(19) He is the foremost of God’s works; only his Maker can draw the sword against him.
(20) The hills yield food for him, while all sorts of wild animals play there.
(21) He lies under the lotus plants, hiding in the protection of marshy reeds.
(22) Lotus plants cover him with their shade; the willows by the brook surround him.
(23) Though the river rages, Behemoth is unafraid; he remains confident, even if the Jordan surges up to his mouth.
(24) Can anyone capture him while he looks on, or pierce his nose with snares?”
Now it is most often suggested that this animal is either an elephant, a crocodile or a hippopotamus.
Of course the first two suggestions are ludicrous!
The crocodile is anything but an herbivore so they have to be immediately removed from this list. The elephant also has to be removed from consideration because they do not live in swamps, they do not hide among reeds and their tail – like the hippopotamus – is little more than a whip.
Out of these suggestions the hippo is the best fit, but still utterly fails because of their tails which are very small and whip-like.
To discover what animal God was referencing we not only need to look at the description given but God’s intention in mentioning the beast in the first place. The text makes it undeniably clear that God’s intention here was to impress upon Job, his utter inability to tame such an animal. While taming an adult hippopotamus would be impossible, pointing out the tail of this animal would not have delivered much of a punch. In fact there is literally no way in which the tail of a hippopotamus has anything in common with any cedar on earth, much less those of the middle east!
Cedar of Lebanon
So all of these suggestions have been removed by simple common sense.
It is likely that this particular creature may be extinct. That does not however keep up from making educated guesses.
In brief I believe this creature to be one of the larger sauropods. This includes the Giraffatitan, the Maraapunisaurus, the Brontosaurus, the Apatosaurus and so on.
These creatures were herbivores, and until recently were largely believed to have lived in swampy areas. The reason for changing this view is because they used to believe they were too massive to support their weight on land, but now they believe that the pressure against their bellies in water would push against their lungs making breathing very difficult. All of this to say that they really don’t know and much of this is guess work.
That having been said, some of the largest of these animals they know to have lived in marshy, swamp lands due to the geological evidence in which the fossilized remains were found. These included shallow, lagoon-like marine environments, tidal flats and low coastal environments as well as vegetated inland environments. This fits the habitat mentioned in this passage. It is said to have hidden under lotus and poplar trees and was protected among the reeds.
For scale the trees mentioned can reach heights of 50 feet, and the Giraffatitan was about 40 feet tall – though their overall body length was about 72 feet.
Link to an illustration of Giraffatitan
Though far less impressive in terms of size I have also included the idea of the
Iguanodon. This is mostly due to a unique feature of its tail. The backbone and tail were supported and stiffened by ossified tendons, which were tendons that turned to bone during life.
Link to an illustration of an Iguanodon
Even still I believe one of the great sauropods to be our most likely candidates and it may easily be an yet undiscovered variety.
When not used defensively the sauropod dinosaurs’ massive tails probably swayed, serving much like a counterbalance for the front of the creature. In this way, the tail could be said to sway like a cedar tree.
In addition to this, these sauropods were of the phylum family grouping of Saurischia dinosaurs which means they possessed hollow bones. This seems to best fit the description above which says “His bones are bronze tubes; his limbs are like iron rods”.
The only reason this does not necessarily eliminate the Iguanodon which did NOT have hollow bones is that the statement is comparative and so not necessarily literal. For example, God was not claiming any animal’s bones were literally bronze or iron, but that such was indicative of its characteristics. In like manner the word translated as “tubes” may not be literal either. It is one of a set of possible meanings all of which are like word pictures representing strength.
None of the fossilized remains of any of these animals have been found in the immediate Palestinian area, though some Iguanodon fossils have been found in Spain and Romania and the Giraffatitans were discovered in Tanzania all of which are connected to Palestine by land.
A very important thing to remember here is that dinosaur bones, much less full skeletal remains, are extremely rare and so not finding them in the area in question does not really mean anything.
As to why commentators often point to obviously incorrect animals like the elephant, crocodile or a hippopotamus is their often unwitting conformity to evolutionary ideas. Both the evolutionary community as well as political powers have very effectively used the news, high school science books, popular media and even children’s books to indoctrinate the public into accepting the unproven belief that dinosaurs never coexisted with man.
This is one of the reasons why I believe God went out of His way to add to His statement, that He made this creature “ALONG WITH YOU”. Meaning, during the same week of creation as all other animals which clearly challenges the evolutionary status quo of our day.
There are many, MANY ancient pictographs, engravings and decorative artwork adorning ancient city walls which depict dinosaurs of various varieties so I honestly do not know how evolution has been as successful as they have in intimidating the public into denying what they can clearly see with their own eyes.
The entire notion of things being “prehistoric” is itself an evolutionary invention with little more than circumstantial evidence interpreted through the lens of evolutionary bias to support it. The very existence of the word “prehistoric” didn’t work its way into the English language until after the publication of Webster’s 1860 dictionary.
Of course the word “dragon” conjures mental images of the medieval knights of folklore, but one has to wonder where did such stories originate? It is interesting that the word “dinosaur” wasn’t even around until a man named Sir Richard Owen coined the term in 1841. Before then such creatures were referred to as dragons. So the use of the word dragon does not necessarily warrant visions of folklore. If the word dinosaur had existed, they very well may have employed its use instead. Some of the earliest stories of dragons are from within Chinese culture and date back several thousands of years. Statues of dragons in Chinese art have been discovered as early as the fifth millennium.
Both real and fake examples of dinosaurs displayed in art and mosaics of history are only a internet search away. Roman Mosaic – Ancient Pictographs – Ica Stones
Article – Do Dinosaurs Disprove the Bible?
Also for more information about the conversation we had on the recording see below:
- Interspecies organ replacement – Robert Montgomery, prepare to implant a genetically engineered pig kidney into a recipient’s abdomen. A pig kidney successfully functioned in a human body for about two months, marking the longest documented case of a xenotransplant of its kind. The point is that it had to be altered genetically by humans to side step an immediate immune reaction, but none have ultimately proven viable!
- Uniqueness of Human genes
Next week we will certainly finish the book of Job by examining the next creature God points out to Job. It is an even more remarkable creature and is perhaps the most fearsome one ever to exist on this planet. The Leviathan!
Blessings!
