BEHEMOTH. - Plural of bēhēmāh, a Hebrew word of generic meaning (= "beast"). Among the ancient translators, some simply transliterated the Hebrew term (Peshitta and Vulgate), others rendered it with "animals" (Septuagint, ōrgōz) or with an equivalent term (Targum), because of the difficulty of deriving its precise meaning. Job 40:10-19 (Heb. vv. 15-24) contains a detailed description of b. Some Fathers (St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Gregory: PL 22, 401; 34, 439; and 41, 330; 71, 1055) saw under this name the personification of Satan. Others, such as St. Thomas (Expositio in Iob, 40, 15), and a rabbinic tradition attested by Ibn Ezra and followed by some commentators of the 17th century, understood it as the elephant.
But today the most common interpretation sees in b. the hippopotamus, designated by an intensive plural; G. Ricciotti is of the opinion that the plural is the Hebrew adaptation of a foreign derivation (Il libro di Giobbe, Turin 1924, p. 243). In reality the features of the biblical description, even with their poetic images, correspond in every respect to the hippopotamus.
The massive mammal, which at its full development can reach three to four meters in length and a weight of more than 25 quintals, characterized by its fleshy and broad snout and by its thick, hairless skin, is described in Job exactly as an amphibious, herbivorous animal, around which the beasts frolic without fear of being bitten, given its heavy and slow gait (as long as it is not irritated); it rests "in the covert of the reeds and in the marshes," "the willows of the brook surround it"; it does not dread the rushing of the waves against its head, it has a powerful frame like bars of iron, its short tail solid as a cedar; man cannot capture it alive to tame it, nor pierce its nostrils, as he does to the other animals he wishes to make use of.
The author of the portrait drawn intends to derive from it an important lesson: God, who intervenes in the dialogue to reduce Job and the other interlocutors to silence, shows them how his works reveal a creative power immensely superior to man. A wise example of this is b., a colossal animal endowed with marvelous strength. Whoever is powerless before it, a mere creature of God, how will he ever dare to measure himself against God, and resist him face to face? Ermenegildo Florit