What Is a Behemoth?

Leviathans, unicorns, dragons and pygargs inhabit the Bible. And part of the delight in studying Biblical animals is simply identifying what they are. The path to an identification can be just as challenging and enchanting as the identification of some mysterious artifact excavated from some ancient city.

BAR readers may want to use their detective skills to try to identify one of the most enigmatic creatures of the Bible—the Behemoth. This great animal is mentioned only once in the Bible, but the passage provides several very good clues:

Take now behemoth, whom I made as I did you;

He eats grass, like the cattle.

His strength is in his loins,

His might in the muscles of his belly.

He makes his tail stand up like a cedar;

The sinews of his thighs are knit together.

His bones are like tubes of bronze,

His limbs like iron rods.

He is the first of God’s works;

Only his Maker can draw the sword against him.

The mountains yield him produce;

All the beasts of the field play there.

He lies down beneath the lotuses,

In the cover of the swamp reeds.

The lotuses embower him in shade;

The willows of the brook surround him.

He can restrain the river from its rushing;