SERIES: The Book of Job
God, Behemoth, Leviathan, and Job
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction to Scripture reading: One of the finest books ever produced for children was published in 1978 by the Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts. It is entitled Character Sketches: From the Pages of Scripture, Illustrated from the World of Nature. It is published in two beautiful, large volumes. Like many children’s stories, songs, or plays, adults can enjoy them as much as the children, though, of course, they don’t like to admit it.
On the title page of this book, which bears no author’s name, the following words are quoted from the Book of Job: “But ask now the animals and they shall teach thee, and the birds of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth and it shall teach thee; and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee.” (Job 12:7-8)
These two books are entitled Character Sketches, Vol. I and II, but they really should have been entitled, Character Sketches, Vol. III and IV, because Vol. I and II are found in the Book of Job, chapters 38-41. Last Sunday we were privileged to examine the first of the Lord God’s two speeches to Job at the end of the book which bears his name. In that speech God gave character sketches of some 20 of his favorite pets. One of His pets is the morning, another is the snow, and still another is the great constellation Orion. He also has some animal pets—some weird, like the ostrich, and some wonderful, like the great war horse and the eagle.
Today we come to Vol. II of God’s Character Sketches, in which He focuses our attention upon just two of His creatures—Behemoth and Leviathan. Would you pay close attention to the reading of God’s Word as found beginning in Job 40:15, and while you do so, I want to ask you to try to decide which animals these sketches are describing.
Look at Behemoth,
which I made along with you
and which feeds on grass like an ox.
16 What strength it has in its loins,
what power in the muscles of its belly!
17 Its tail sways like a cedar;
the sinews of its thighs are close-knit.
18 Its bones are tubes of bronze,
its limbs like rods of iron.
19 It ranks first among the works of God,
yet its Maker can approach it with his sword.
20 The hills bring it their produce,
and all the wild animals play nearby.
21 Under the lotus plants it lies,
hidden among the reeds in the marsh.
22 The lotuses conceal it in their shadow;
the poplars by the stream surround it.
23 A raging river does not alarm it;
it is secure, though the Jordan should surge against its mouth.
24 Can anyone capture it by the eyes,
or trap it and pierce its nose?
Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook
or tie down its tongue with a rope?
2 Can you put a cord through its nose
or pierce its jaw with a hook?
3 Will it keep begging you for mercy?
Will it speak to you with gentle words?
4 Will it make an agreement with you
for you to take it as your slave for life?
5 Can you make a pet of it like a bird
or put it on a leash for the young women in your house?
6 Will traders barter for it?
Will they divide it up among the merchants?
7 Can you fill its hide with harpoons
or its head with fishing spears?
8 If you lay a hand on it,
you will remember the struggle and never do it again!
9 Any hope of subduing it is false;
the mere sight of it is overpowering.
10 No one is fierce enough to rouse it.
Who then is able to stand against me?
11 Who has a claim against me that I must pay?
Everything under heaven belongs to me.
12 “I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs,
its strength and its graceful form.
13 Who can strip off its outer coat?
Who can penetrate its double coat of armor[b]?
14 Who dares open the doors of its mouth,
ringed about with fearsome teeth?
15 Its back has rows of shields
tightly sealed together;
16 each is so close to the next
that no air can pass between.
17 They are joined fast to one another;
they cling together and cannot be parted.
18 Its snorting throws out flashes of light;
its eyes are like the rays of dawn.
19 Flames stream from its mouth;
sparks of fire shoot out.
20 Smoke pours from its nostrils
as from a boiling pot over burning reeds.
21 Its breath sets coals ablaze,
and flames dart from its mouth.
22 Strength resides in its neck;
dismay goes before it.
23 The folds of its flesh are tightly joined;
they are firm and immovable.
24 Its chest is hard as rock,
hard as a lower millstone.
25 When it rises up, the mighty are terrified;
they retreat before its thrashing.
26 The sword that reaches it has no effect,
nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin.
27 Iron it treats like straw
and bronze like rotten wood.
28 Arrows do not make it flee;
slingstones are like chaff to it.
29 A club seems to it but a piece of straw;
it laughs at the rattling of the lance.
30 Its undersides are jagged potsherds,
leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge.
31 It makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron
and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment.
32 It leaves a glistening wake behind it;
one would think the deep had white hair.
33 Nothing on earth is its equal—
a creature without fear.
34 It looks down on all that are haughty;
it is king over all that are proud.”
Now what is God trying to tell us through these two incredible animals? In a few moments we will see.
Introduction to Sermon: I want to warn you before I begin this morning that I plan to preach essentially the same sermon I preached last Sunday. That’s a bit unusual for me, but I really feel that I must. I’m not going to preach it from the same passage, but it is substantially the same sermon. You see, when God answered Job out of the storm, He had basically one message, but He took four long chapters to say it and He says it in many different ways. If I had decided to preach all four chapters in one sermon, I would barely have had time to read the text, much less comment on it. Besides, I’m of the strong conviction that God doesn’t waste words. He intends for everything He says to be read and studied. Repetition is one of life’s greatest teachers, and the amount of it we find here indicates that God must have a special point He wants us to grasp.
God’s character sketches are designed to teach spiritual truths. Among the key truths we found last Sunday in Vol. I (chapters 38 and 39) are how great God is, how helpless mankind is to even govern his own environment, and how much more important it is to know “who” than to know “why.” The fact is God won’t always solve our intellectual problems for us, but He is always willing to solve our spiritual problems for us.
Before we begin to examine the detailed descriptions God offers of Behemoth and Leviathan, I think we must pay some attention to the introductory portion of God’s second speech, 40:6-14. The first speech got Job’s attention and caused him to button his lip, but he still hasn’t repented of his arrogance in demanding that God meet him on his terms. So God speaks again:
“Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm: ‘Brace yourself like a man; I will question you and you will answer me. Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself? Do you have an arm like God’s, and can your voice thunder like his? Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty. Unleash the fury of your wrath, look at every proud man and bring him low, look at every proud man and humble him, crush the wicked where they stand. Bury them all in the dust together; shroud their faces in the grave. Then I myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you.'”
God challenges Job to take His place to see if he can run the universe better than God does. (40:6-14)
Once again we are reminded that a number of times during his speeches in this book Job has implied that God isn’t very adept at governing the creatures He has created. After all, He sometimes allows the righteous to suffer and the wicked to prosper. Job has implied that he wouldn’t allow such injustice and inconsistency if he were God! So, God decides to press the issue, saying in effect, “Try on My shoes and see if they fit you.”
Where is your brilliance, Job? (8) “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn Me to justify yourself?” You must be awfully smart! In fact, you must be omniscient to the second power to feel you can discredit Me! Yet, strangely, you seemed to know very little about even the physical world or the animal kingdom.
Where is your power? (9) “Do you have an arm like God? And can your voice thunder like His?” God has resources to match His wisdom and carry out His plan. Do you, Job? If you are not even able to control the world of nature, what business do you have trying to exercise jurisdiction over the moral realm? To contend with God suggests an assumed equality with Him.
Where is your glory? (10) To take over the job of running the universe, Job would need to dress the part, putting on God’s glory and splendor. “Clothe yourself in honor and majesty,” God tells him. But Job can’t. He’s sitting on a garbage pile in sackcloth and ashes. Not much glory in that!
Where is your ability? (11-14) Here God zeroes in on a task concerning which Job has specifically criticized God—that of judging the wicked, crushing and burying them to make sure they get by with nothing further. But, of course, God’s demands of Job here are impossible for him (or any of us) to meet. The fact is, we find it almost impossible to determine even among our own acquaintances who is really guilty or what judgment is deserved because (1) some bad things are done ignorantly rather than from premeditation, (2) sometimes we think something evil has been done but find later that we were simply ignorant of the facts, and (3) some evil people can be rehabilitated, while others cannot. We simply don’t have what it takes to handle the judgment of the wicked consistently.
Having challenged Job with these questions, God draws a conclusion in verse 14, effectively paraphrased, “Job, if you can show your brilliance, power, glory, and ability to judge the wicked, then I Myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you, but not until!” Wow! Friends, the greatest question confronting any man is the question, “How can I be saved? How can I deliver myself from the enigmas of human existence and from the sin whose wages are death?” The answer is this, “You can save yourself, but only if you are omniscient, omnipotent, and full of glory, splendor, honor, and majesty.” If you lack any of those qualities, it’s time to learn some lessons from the Behemoth and from the Leviathan.
God describes the Behemoth. (40:15-24)
The word “behemoth,” found in verse 15, is the plural of the Hebrew word for “beast.” Since the exact species of beast is not named, scholars have long argued about its identification, and some have even suggested that it represents a mythological creature, especially since the second name referred to, Leviathan, is well-known in ancient mythology. There are, however, several reasons why I believe God is referring to real animals in both of these Character Sketches. First, God says that He made Behemoth just as He made Job (40:15). Second, the detailed description of Behemoth’s anatomy suggests an actual animal, though a few features may be exaggerated through poetic license. Third, the twelve animals mentioned in God’s first speech were obviously real, leading one to expect these to be real as well.
But if Behemoth is a real, actual animal, which one is he? Suggestions have included the elephant, the hornless rhino, the water buffalo, the hippopotamus, and the brontosaurus. The latter two animals are the most likely, and while my own inclination is to go with the hippo, I do wish to comment briefly about the possibility God may be describing his own Jurassic Park here.
I was listening to KMOX Wednesday on the way home from work and heard that some man somewhere had sold a group of fossilized dinosaur eggs for $75,000 at an auction. He claimed the eggs were 70 to 100 million years old. Whenever I hear things like that, I always find myself asking, “How does he know?” Did these eggs have dates on them? Well, that is somewhat of a facetious question because I know at least a little about how scientists arrive at these dates. They have a whole set of cosmological, geological, and paleontological assumptions that are, in fact, highly suspect. The fact is they don’t know how old those eggs are.
The evidence suggests that most dinosaurs were killed off during a great cataclysmic event that changed the climate in a drastic way. Fortunately for me, on Friday the Post Dispatch had an article that identified that cataclysmic event. Sixty-five million years ago a space rock the size of Connecticut hit the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico traveling 100,000 mph, created temperatures of 20,000 degrees, triggered 400-foot tidal waves and earthquakes up to 12 on the Richter scale, bringing about the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Now frankly, I don’t know. Maybe a huge meteor did hit the earth and kill the dinosaurs. It could have even been 65 million years ago, if one postulates the gap theory in Genesis 1, but there is a lot of evidence that the cataclysmic event that created a lot of the geological strata and the fossil record was a flood rather than a meteor, and a relatively recent flood at that. The way dinosaur bones are generally found heaped in piles on top of one another in northwest Colorado and many other places indicates they did not become extinct gradually but were buried alive during a great deluge.
The Bible, of course, speaks of a world-wide flood during Noah’s day, but many scientists scoff at the story—not because there is no evidence for it, but rather because they assume the Bible to be religious myth. Unfortunately, we cannot date the Noahic flood with any degree of accuracy, but it is certainly to be dated in the thousands of years, not millions. But is it possible to read the geological record in thousands rather than millions of years? Yes, it is, if a world-wide flood really occurred as described in Genesis.
Even a creationist, however, can legitimately ask why dinosaurs would have become extinct in the flood if Noah was commanded to take two of every animal into the ark. That’s a good question, and I think the answer must be that Noah would have taken dinosaurs (very young ones, I presume) into the ark if they were living at the time, and they would have survived the flood. However, the climate conditions after the flood were vastly different, and a number of species apparently survived for only a short time. Whether certain kinds of dinosaur could have survived as late as 2,000 years B.C., which is the approximate date we have assigned to the book of Job, is highly problematical. But if they even survived the flood and therefore had been extinct only a matter of a few hundred or a few thousand years, Job would certainly have been aware of them through stories passed down through tribal memory.
For God to use Behemoth as a teaching point, all is required is that Job know what He’s talking about. When I was a boy I read many stories of the west, describing vast herds of buffalo and packs of wolves. The fact that those animals were nearly extinct when I was reading the stories did not prevent me from understanding, because the collective memory of our culture still contained a vivid awareness of these animals.
Now all that is to say that I think it is possible God is describing a brontosaurus in this passage when He speaks of Behemoth, and some kind of marine dinosaur under the name of Leviathan. In fact, there are some aspects of the description of Behemoth that fit a brontosaurus better than any living animal (e.g., verse 17: “his tail sways like a cedar;” verse 15, 20: it is herbivorous, resulting in the fact that “all the wild animals play nearby because they are unafraid of him”; verse 19: “he ranks first among the works of God.”) All things considered, however, I think it is better, if possible, to take this as an animal that would clearly have been living in Job’s day, for in verse 15 God tells Job to “look at the behemoth.” Sure, we may have to admit that some exaggeration is present; after all, poetry by its very nature frequently involves poetic license. The hippopotamus fits the description fairly well, and is, in fact, the choice of the vast majority of Bible commentators.
God describes the animal in terms of its strength, its preeminence, and its security.
Its strength (15-18) is due in part to its enormous size—up to 8,000 pounds for an adult hippo. While it is difficult to see why the hippo’s short, stubby tail should remind one of swaying cedars, the analogy is not totally inconceivable, especially if it’s the stiffness of the tail rather than its size that is in view. The limbs and bones of this animal are astonishing in respect to strength.
Its preeminence (19) is mentioned in verse 19: “he ranks first among the works of God.” We call the lion the king of beasts, but God calls Behemoth the king. Only God dares go near it with the sword for the purpose of hand-to-hand combat, but strangely, other animals can play next to it because it does not eat meat.
Its security (20-24) is related to the water, for it is an amphibious creature. It lies under the lotus plants, hidden in the reeds of the marshes. The trees along the stream conceal him and even a torrential river, like the Jordan during a storm, can’t budge him or alarm him. Sometimes he submerges himself with only his eyes and his nose poking out, but would you care to capture him by those exposed parts and put a ring through his nose? God politely implies that you’d better think twice about it.
Then God moves directly, without pausing to make any explicit application, to the second Character Sketch—that of Leviathan.
God describes Leviathan. (41:1-34)
While various animals like the whale, the dolphin and the marine dinosaur have been suggested as possible identities for Leviathan, there is no animal which seems to satisfy this remarkable description better than the crocodile. The fact that the account of Leviathan is longer than that of any of the other animals, and the fact that it is the most vicious of all the animals mentioned by God—sometimes even preying on people—gives this chapter a climactic character.
The following points are made about Leviathan: It is invincible, it has an awesome anatomy, and it is totally lacking in fear.
Its invincibility (1-11) “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?” If you’re going to fish for croc, you’d better use more than spin-cast equipment and an 8-pound test line! Several weeks ago, I watched a program on channel 9 about crocodiles in Australia. It was fascinating, as it revealed how many people are killed each year by these animals. In fact, it showed an area where people were lined up on a kind of causeway fishing, barely 3 feet apart, much like opening day in trout season on Missouri rivers, and a full-grown crocodile just came out of the water, grabbed a man, and they never saw him again.
God continues his biting sarcasm: “Can you tie his tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he keep begging you for mercy?” The point is, you can’t catch him and even if you could, what would you do with him? Make him a servant, or a pet for your little girls? Or sell him? He’s too big for any one merchant. The fact is, according to Google, the largest crocodile ever was 40 feet long and weighed over 17,000 pounds. Verse 8 is one of the choicest morsels in ancient literature: “If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again!”
The point of this awesome description of Leviathan’s invincibility is given in verses 10 and 11: “No one is fierce enough to rouse him. Who then is able to stand against me? Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.” If even the most courageous person would not be so insane as to stir up Leviathan (Crocodile Dundee, not withstanding), how could anyone be so foolhardy as to stand up against God, as Job has tried to do? The warning is against irreverence, not an attempt to discourage us from having any dealings with God. The purpose is to enhance our view of God’s capability of managing the universe so that people will be more inclined to trust Him.
Its awesome anatomy (12-24) I will not elaborate upon the description of Leviathan from verses 12-24, except to say that the fire and smoke coming from his mouth and eyes does not require us to see a dragon here, but it is probably just hyperbole expressing the fearsomeness of his appearance. When a vicious crocodile emerges from under the water, it expels its pent-up breath together with water in a hot stream from its mouth, and this looks like a stream of fire in the sunshine.
But not only is he fearsome; he is also fearless, and in 26-34 this total lack of fear is expressed through varying picturesque similes and metaphors.
Its fearlessness (26-34) Follow the description in verse 26:
“Iron he treats like straw
And bronze like rotten wood.
Arrows do not make him flee.
Slingshots are like chaff to him.
A club seems to him like a piece of straw.
When he thrashes about in the water,
the churning makes the water look like it had white hair.
Nothing on earth is his equal,
a creature without fear.
He looks down on all that are haughty,
he is king over all that are proud.
God is quite a poet, but He is a poet with a purpose. There are some very important principles that God is trying to impress upon Job. They come out in the conclusion to today’s text, Job 42:1-6:
Then Job replied to the Lord: “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job learns some very important principles everyone should know. (42:1-6)
Up to this point Job has been a lot like most of us—we live in this world but we don’t really see it. We step on spiders but don’t stop to think about the incredible ability God has given them to hang in air on pure silk spun from their own bodies. We see the stars (if the pollution isn’t too bad), but fail to consider that God not only created them, but He also created the streams of light which tell us they are there. We complain about snow that blocks our driveway but fail to consider that every snowflake is a microscopic universe unique from all others. We enjoy good food and fail to consider the thousands of chemical reactions which must take place inside our bodies to digest it.
God’s fingerprints and footprints are all over this universe, but we talk of evolution and Mother Nature and luck. How tragic! The fact is God’s fingerprints in the world around us should cause at least 4 things to happen:
The world around us should cause us to worship God. Worship is a concept that is hard to get a handle on. It is a complex action and attitude, and many factors go into producing a heart of true worship. But the factor that is most fundamental to worship is that of value, i.e., placing a value on God that is far beyond our allegiance to anyone or anything else. The very word “worship”comes from the Old English term “worthship” and the same fundamental concept is behind the Hebrew term.
In our modern world, as in Job’s, so many things vie for our attention and our allegiance. Values conflict and it is difficult to set priorities. Our modern situation is reflected by a special sale sign found in a drug store greeting card section. Over an attractive red Valentine reading, “I Love You Only,” was the sale sign reading, “12 for $1.” Like the purchasers of that card, it is hard for us to be single minded toward God and to place a value on Him that is unrivalled. Job finally arrived there when he said, “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.” Job saw God as unique and invincible and worthy of all praise and honor and glory.
The world around us should cause us to be humble before God. In verse 3 Job quotes God’s introductory question from chapter 38 and answers it. Here’s my paraphrase: “O.k., God, I admit it. I spoke out of turn. I am like an ant crawling up one of the columns of the Parthenon, complaining because the marble is slippery. I thought I had the whole perspective and now I realize how puny and distorted my understand really is.”
Anyone who cannot undertake God’s works has no right to undermine God’s ways. And anyone who trembles at the sight of fierce beasts is unwise in boldly contending with the Maker of those beasts. Once again, we note that a proper view of the value of God and a proper view of our own humility always go hand in hand.
The world around us should cause us to affirm God’s providential care. We mentioned the problem of evil last week, namely “why should there be evil if God is good and also all-powerful?” But Job demonstrates that the problem of evil is not so much a philosophical problem as it is a problem of relationship. While he has not learned the cause of his sufferings or the explanation of the apparent injustices in the world, he has found fellowship with God again.
Up to this point both Job and his friends believed that his sufferings meant God had abandoned him, but now he knows that he can have a relationship with God even in his sufferings, because God has come to him and spoken to him. His new relationship with God is compared to his former understanding, as the knowledge of rumor is compared with that of an eyewitness. “My ears had heard of you,” he says, “but now my eyes have seen you.” That is, however, not only comforting but also convicting, which brings us to our final lesson:
The world around us should cause us to repent, for our own hand cannot save us. Verse 6 reads, “Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” This is the first time in the book that Job confesses any sin. And he is not confessing that he has suffered because of his sin, but rather that he has sinned because of his suffering. He was and is a righteous man, but even righteous people can develop wrong attitudes toward God. Perhaps because they have been obedient servants and have exercised unusual trust and faith in God, they develop the unconscious notion that God should give them preferential treatment. But God has no obligations other than those He imposes on Himself.
The result is that Job repents and surrenders himself to the will of God. I take you back to the statement of God in 40:14, where God says that if Job could manage the universe, “Then I Myself will admit to you that your own right hand will save you.” Job has admitted that he cannot save himself, so he casts himself on the grace and mercy of God.
Friends, if even a man like Job, who was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil, cannot save himself, then neither can you! Won’t you repent today of your self-sufficiency, your indifference, perhaps even your bitterness toward God, and begin to enjoy fellowship with Him as He intended all along? If you desire to be His friend, you must approach Him through His Son, who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes unto the Father but by me.” Jesus died for you. He died in your place on Calvary’s cross that you might have eternal life. You can receive Him today by faith.
Whatever may be your taste in music, you will agree, I am sure, that Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is a spine-tingling masterpiece. One night Arturo Toscanini, perhaps the most dynamic of modern maestros, led a simply spine-tingling rendition of Beethoven’s immortal masterpiece. The audience went mad. People clapped, whistled, and stomped their feet. Toscanini bowed and bowed and bowed. He signaled to the orchestra, and its members stood to acknowledge the wild applause.
Eventually, of course, the pandemonium began to subside, and with the ebbing applause as the background, Toscanini turned and looked intently at his musicians. With almost uncontrollable emotion he exclaimed, “Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” The members of the orchestra leaned forward to listen. Why was the maestro so disturbed? Was he angry? Had someone missed a cue? Had the orchestra messed up the performance? No, Toscanini was not angry. He was stirred to the very depths of his being by the sheer magnificence of the music.
Scarcely able to talk, he said in a fierce whisper, “Gentlemen, I am nothing.” (That was an extraordinary admission since Toscanini was blessed with enormous ego!) “Gentlemen, ” he added, “You are nothing.” (That was not exactly news either. The members of the orchestra had often heard the same message during rehearsal!). “But Beethoven,” said Toscanini in a tone of adoration, “is everything, everything, everything!”[i]
Conclusion: I stand here this morning looking back over the past several decades and I can, with no false modesty, admit that I am nothing. Oh, I am grateful for whatever gifts God has entrusted to me and the ways in which He has used those gifts, but in a few short years I will be gone and my influence will be speedily forgotten.
I can also say, dear friends, with no sense of inordinate criticism, that you also are nothing. Regardless of the talents you may possess, regardless of the achievements you may make, from the perspective of eternity you, as I, are nothing.
But the God who made the brontosaurus, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, the God who created Beethoven and endowed him with extraordinary ability, the God who created Job and you and me—He is everything, everything, everything!
DATE: September 19, 1993
Tags:
Animal kingdom
Behemoth
Leviathan
[i] Citation lost.