Behemoth- Hebrew/Jewish CreatureCreature · Beast"Beast of the Land"

The Voice from the Whirlwind

For thirty-seven chapters of the Book of Job, a ruined man argues with friends who insist his suffering must be deserved. When God finally answers, it is not with explanation but with spectacle. Speaking from a whirlwind, God parades the wonders of creation before Job: the wild ox that will not serve, the war horse that laughs at fear. Then, as the final marvel: "Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you" (Job 40:15).

The Hebrew word is the intensive plural of behemah, "beast." Not many beasts but the ultimate beast.

Behemoth eats grass like an ox, but there the resemblance ends. His strength resides in his loins and the muscles of his belly. His tail stands stiff as a cedar. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs bars of iron. He is "the first of the works of God," and only his Maker can approach him with a sword. Yet he is no rampaging destroyer. He lies under the lotus plants in the marsh, hidden among reeds and willows by the stream. When the Jordan floods and surges against his mouth, he does not flinch. "Can one take him by his eyes, or pierce his nose with a snare?" God asks (Job 40:24). If Job cannot master a fellow creature, how can he question the Creator?

Separated at Creation

The Book of Enoch tells how Behemoth came to inhabit the wilderness. On the fifth day of creation, God separated two primordial monsters that the world could not contain together. Leviathan was assigned to the abyss of the sea. Behemoth was placed in a vast desert called Dundayin, east of the garden where the elect and righteous dwell. The angel Uriel revealed these details to Enoch: each creature penned in its own domain, each too enormous to share territory with the other.

The apocalyptic book of 4 Ezra confirms the separation: "You preserved two living creatures; the name of 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" (4 Ezra 6:49–52). From the beginning, the world was divided between them. Land for one, sea for the other.

The Thousand Mountains

Rabbinic sources elaborated with characteristic vividness. The Babylonian Talmud teaches that Behemoth grazes daily upon a thousand mountains. The grass grows back each night so the cycle can repeat without exhausting the earth.

The Talmud also addresses reproduction. God originally created both a male and a female Behemoth, but if they had bred, their offspring would have overwhelmed the world. So God castrated the male and killed the female, preserving her flesh in salt for the righteous at the end of days. The surviving male endures alone: vast, sterile, and waiting.

Leviticus Rabbah and Pesikta de-Rav Kahana describe what he waits for. Behemoth will gore Leviathan with his horns. Leviathan will slash Behemoth with his fins. Both will die. Their mutual destruction clears the way for the world to come.

The Feast at the End of Days

After the slaughter, God sets a table. The flesh of Behemoth and Leviathan becomes the centerpiece of the messianic banquet, the feast celebrating the final redemption. The booth sheltering the righteous will be sewn from Leviathan's skin, for tradition held that its scales shone with unearthly light. The meat will be Behemoth's. The wine will be drawn from grapes preserved since the six days of creation.