Behemoth

Behemoth - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

(Job 40:15-24). Some have supposed this to be an Egyptian word meaning a "water-ox." The Revised Version has here in the margin "hippopotamus," which is probably the correct rendering of the word. The word occurs frequently in Scripture, but, except here, always as a common name, and translated "beast" or "cattle."

Behemoth - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

BE'HEMOTH, n.]Heb. a beast or brute; from an Arabic vert, which signifies, to shut, to lie hid, to be dumb. In Eth.dumb.]

Authors are divided in opinion as to the animal intended in scripture by this anme; some supposing it to be an ox, others, an elephant; and Bochart labors to prove it the hippopotamus, or river horse. The latter opinion is most probably. [See Hippopotamus.] The original word in Arabic signifies a brute of beast in general, especially a quadruped.

be'-he-moth, be-he'-moth (behemoth: Job 40:15): Apparently the plural of behemah, "a beast," used of domestic or wild animals. The same form, behemoth, occurs in other passages, e.g. De 28:26; 32:24; Isa 18:6; Hab 2:17, where it is not rendered "behemoth" but "beasts." According to some, the word behemoth, occurring in Job 40:15, is not a Hebrew word, the plural of behemah, but a word of Egyptian origin signifying "water ox." This etymology is denied by Cheyne and others. The word has by various writers been understood to mean rhinoceros and elephant, but the description (Job 40:15-24) applies on the whole very well to the hippopotamus (Hippopotamus arnphibius) which inhabits the Nile and other rivers of Africa. Especially applicable are the references to its great size, its eating grass, the difficulty with which weapons penetrate its hide, and its frequenting of streams. "He lieth under the lotus-trees, In the covert of the reed, and the fen. The lotus-trees cover him with their shade; The willows of the brook compass him about." The remains of a fossil hippopotamus of apparently the same species are found over most of Europe, so that it may have inhabited Palestine in early historical times, although we have no record of it. There is a smaller living species in west Africa, and there are several other fossil species in Europe and India. The remains of Hippopotamus minutus have been found in enormous quantities in caves in Malta and Sicily.

For an elaborate explanation of behemoth and leviathan (which see) as mythical creatures, see Cheyne, EB, under the word

Alfred Ely Day