What was a leviathan or a behemoth?

[TonyChanYT]

Job 40:

15 Take a look at Behemoth, which I made, just as I made you. It eats grass like an ox.

Job 41:

1 Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope?

Some thought Leviathan and Behemoth were amphibious. Benson Commentary:

But some later and very learned men take the leviathan to be the crocodile, and the behemoth to be a creature called the hippopotamus, or river-horse, which may seem to be fitly joined with the crocodile, both being very well known to Job and his friends, as being frequent in the adjacent places, both amphibious, living and preying both in the water and upon the land, and both being creatures of great bulk and strength.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown:

behemoth—The description in part agrees with the hippopotamus, in part with the elephant, but exactly in all details with neither. It is rather a poetical personification of the great Pachydermata, or Herbivora (so "he eateth grass"), the idea of the hippopotamus being predominant. In Job 40:17, "the tail like a cedar," hardly applies to the latter (so also Job 40:20, 23, "Jordan," a river which elephants alone could reach, but see on [560]Job 40:23). On the other hand, Job 40:21, 22 are characteristic of the amphibious river horse. So leviathan (the twisting animal), Job 41:1, is a generalized term for cetacea, pythons, saurians of the neighboring seas and rivers, including the crocodile, which is the most prominent, and is often associated with the river horse by old writers. "Behemoth" seems to be the Egyptian Pehemout, "water-ox," Hebraized, so-called as being like an ox, whence the Italian bombarino.

Barnes:

It is an amphibious animal, or an animal whose usual resort is the river, though he is occasionally on land. This is evident, because he is mentioned as lying under the covert of the reed and the fens; as abiding in marshy places, or among the willows of the brook, Job 40:21-22, while at other times he is on the mountains, or among other animals, and feeds on grass like the ox, Job 40:15, Job 40:20. This account would not agree well with the elephant, whose residence is not among marshes and fens, but on solid ground.

Ancient writers often pair together crocodiles and hippopotamuses. Then perhaps Leviathan is a crocodile, and Behemoth is a hippopotamus.

As they are here grouped together in the argument, it is probable that they belong to the same class; and if by the leviathan is meant the "crocodile," then the presumption is that the river-horse, or the hippopotamus, is here intended. These two animals, as being Egyptian wonders, are everywhere mentioned together by ancient writers; see Herodotus, ii.-69-71; Diod. Sic. i. 35; and Pliny, "Hist. Nat." xxviii. 8.

Job 40:

17 He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together.

Benson thought it could be a hippo:

Job 40:17. He moveth his tail like a cedar — Though the tail be but short, both in the elephant, and in the hippopotamus; yet, when it is erected, it is exceeding stiff and strong. The sinews of his stones, &c. — Rather, of his thighs, as the Hebrew may be rendered. The thighs and feet of the river- horse are so sinewy and strong that one of them is able to break or overturn a large boat.

These are guesses.

According to paleontologists, dinosaurs became extinct 66 million years ago.

See also Dinosaurs.

 

[Randy Kluth]

Job 40:


Job 41:


Some thought Leviathan and Behemoth were amphibious. Benson Commentary:


Jamieson-Fausset-Brown:


Barnes:


Ancient writers often pair together crocodiles and hippopotamuses. Then perhaps Leviathan is a crocodile, and Behemoth is a hippopotamus.


Job 40:


Benson thought it could be a hippo:


These are guesses.

According to paleontologists, dinosaurs became extinct 66 million years ago.

See also Dinosaurs.

Yes, Young Earthers like to claim that people and extinct dinosaurs actually lived contemporaneously on earth, and this record is proof of that. The descriptions don't fit anything humanity has known of unless Job is refencing a dinosaur.

I personally accept the scientific evidence for the age of the earth and for the old age of extinct dinosaurs. I just do not accept the scientific consensus that Man himself is old, being that his so-called "ancestors" were really apes.

 

[TonyChanYT]

I just do not accept the scientific consensus that Man himself is old, being that his so-called "ancestors" were really apes.

Check out Adam, Eve, and evolution