Behemoth and Leviathan

Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.

-- Job 40: 15-16 (KJV)

 
Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?
Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?
Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee?

-- Job 41: 1-3 (KJV)

God has had enough of Job's moaning and his friends' smug rejoinders. Addressing Job "out of the whirlwind" (38: 1), God demands to know where any of these people got the idea they could fathom his motivations. "Where wast thou," God queries sarcastically, "when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare if thou has understanding" (38: 4).

God continues by citing a string of his awesome deeds and by posing a series of withering puzzles -- "Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?" "Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof?" "Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew?" Et cetera. All of these are versions of "What makes you think you're so smart?"

God wants to make another point: not only is mankind ignorant, but it tends to take a grandiose view of its importance. Within nature -- over which the God of Genesis had given man dominion -- there are creatures who fear no man, and forces only God can control. Among these are the fearsome "behemoth" (40: 15) and "leviathan" (41: 1). Some literal-minded readers of the Bible have equated these mighty creatures with actual animals -- surmising, for example, that Behemoth is a hippopatomus or elephant and Leviathan a crocodile or whale.

But scholars now believe that Leviathan is based on a seven-headed sea monster named "Lothan" found in Canaanite myths. This Lothan is a primordial enemy of the thunder god Baal, who ultimately destroys it, even as God in Psalm 74 "breakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness" (verse 14). Lothan/Leviathan is also paralleled in Greek myth, where Zeus faces down a many-headed dragon named Typhon.

No similar parallel, however, has been discovered for the randy Behemoth. The OED speculates that the Hebrew b'hemoth may derive from the Egyptian p-ehe-mau, "water ox," which certainly accords with its description in Job. Many scholars still maintain that it was originally a hippo, though it likely also had some mythical aspect. In any case, "behemoth" has come to be used in English to describe any huge and fearsome beast.

"Leviathan," on the other hand, while also signifying "huge monster," has proved a more versatile metaphor. When Lord Byron spoke of an "oak leviathan" in 1818, he was referring to a boat; Edmund Burke meant that the Duke of Bedford was a mighty man, not a fire-breathing monster, when he called him "the leviathan among all the creatures of the crown"; and Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan (1651) considered the commonwealth a "great Leviathan," by which he meant "a mortal god," granted us by the immortal one for our common defense. Far be it from me to accuse Hobbes of misreading the Bible, but I don't think he expected God to crush England to pieces.

 
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Michael Macrone is Associate Site Producer of GraceCom and the author of nine books on language, literature, and ideas, including the best-selling Brush Up Your Shakespeare!