Interpreting Behemoth in Job as a Literal Creature

Behemoth in Job 40:15 should be understood as a literal creature, not a figurative symbol. The text itself presses us in that direction when we read it carefully and let its own language govern our interpretation.

The passage begins, "Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox." The word "behold" is an eyeball word. It calls Job to look at something. Ordinarily, if Scripture wanted to direct us to a figure, it would speak in terms such as "consider" or otherwise signal that it is presenting an abstract lesson. Here the language is oriented toward visual observation.

The statement "which I made with thee" ties Behemoth back to creation alongside man. It strains normal language to take "I made you" literally and in the same breath take "I made behemoth" figuratively. The parallel suggests a real creature.

The description continues, "he eateth grass as an ox." The text explicitly tells us he is not an ox, but he eats grass like an ox. Here the passage plainly knows how to use simile and comparison. It compares one literal creature to another. If Behemoth himself were a symbol, we would be forced to make "eating" and "grass" symbolic as well, and then to explain what abstract reality is being symbolized. The text gives no indication that we have shifted into such a symbolic register.

Further statements are also concrete and bodily: his strength is in his loins, his force in the navel of his belly, he moves his tail like a cedar, his bones are like bars of iron, he lies under shady trees, the willows of the brook compass him about, and so forth. This is the language of anatomy, mass, and place. One can grant that some clauses shade into hyperbole or idiom (for example, "he drinketh up a river" and "he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth") without losing the basic literal referent. Ordinary speech often uses vivid overstatement for a very thirsty animal without thereby turning the animal itself into a metaphor.

Moreover, the broader context of Job 40 continues with Leviathan, another formidable creature presented in overwhelmingly concrete terms. There is no clear textual marker telling the reader to treat one of these as literal and the other as symbolic. It is actually much harder to sustain a figurative reading than a literal one.

The Identity of Behemoth

What, then, is Behemoth? Here we reach the limits of our knowledge. The Hebrew text in Job 40:15 uses a word that the King James translators simply transliterated: "Behemoth." That move often signals that they were not confident in narrowing it to one familiar animal. When we trace the underlying consonants (without later vowel markings) across the Hebrew Bible, we find related forms that are variously rendered "beasts," or that in other contexts seem to refer to animals in large, somewhat generic categories. Hebrew uses broader group terms for animals and plants than modern scientific taxonomy.

Because of this, attempts to equate Behemoth with a specific modern animal (hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephant, camel, and so on) are probably misplaced. The description—especially the tail like a cedar—does not match some of the common proposals. It is entirely possible that Behemoth was:

• A large land creature now extinct;
• A kind of large animal known to Job’s world but not easily classifiable in our categories; or
• Even a massive reptilian creature of the type we today would broadly group with dinosaurs.

The text itself, however, does not require us to identify Behemoth with a precise modern species. It only requires us to recognize that he is a real, created, colossal land creature under the sovereign power of God.

Why the Literal Reading Matters

A literal Behemoth fits the rhetorical purpose of the Lord’s speech in Job. God is humbling Job by displaying overwhelming realities in the created order. He is not offering Job a lesson in literary symbolism; he is confronting him with the fact that Job cannot control or challenge the Creator who fashions and governs such creatures. The force of the argument depends on the concreteness of Behemoth and Leviathan.

For these reasons, the best reading is that Behemoth is a literal, immense animal known in Job’s day, even if we cannot now identify him with certainty. Figurative interpretations create far more problems in the text than they solve.

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