Behemoth

BĒHĒMÖTH. – Plural of bēhēmāh, a Hebrew word of generic meaning (= “beast”). Among the ancient translators, some simply transcribed the Hebrew term (Pešṭṭā and Vulgate), while others rendered it as “animals” (Septuagint, ōrgōz) or with an equivalent term (Targūm), because of the difficulty of determining its precise meaning. Iob 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 (Exposito in Iob, 40, 15), and a rabbinic tradition attested by Ibn Ezra and followed by certain seventeenth-century commentators, understood it as the elephant.

Today, however, the most common interpretation identifies b. with the hippopotamus, designated by an intensive plural; G. Ricciotti holds that the plural is the Hebrew adaptation of a foreign derivation (Il libro di Giobbe, Torino 1924, p. 243). In reality, the features of the biblical description, despite their poetic imagery, correspond entirely to the hippopotamus.

This massive mammal, which in full maturity can reach a length of three to four metres, and

a weight exceeding 25 quintals, distinctive for its fleshy, broad muzzle and its thick, naked skin, is described in Iob exactly as an amphibious, herbivorous animal, around which the beasts frolic without fear of being bitten, given its heavy and slow gait (so long as it is not irritated); it rests “in the secrecy of the reed bed and in marshy places,” “the willows of the stream surround it”; it does not fear the bursting of the waves against its head, it has a powerful skeleton like iron bars, and its short tail is solid like a cedar; man is unable to capture it alive in order to domesticate it or to pierce its nostrils, as he does with other animals that he wishes to use.

The author of the portrait thus drawn intends to derive from it an important lesson: God, who intervenes in the dialogue in order to silence Giobbe and the other interlocutors, shows them how his works reveal a creative power immeasurably superior to that of man. One proof of this is b., a colossal animal endowed with wondrous strength. If one is powerless before it, a mere creature of God, how could one ever dare to contend with God and resist him face to face?

Ermenegildo Florit