September 20, 2018: Day 40 – Job 40

We have our first back and forth between Job and God.  Notice, Job does not back down.  He doesn’t defend himself and he doesn’t melt into a puddle of humility which you might think a person would when they are confronted by God.  He doesn’t take anything back that he said before, but just states that he will keep silent and allow God to make his statements.  How generous of Job.

The Behemoth is an interesting attribution.  I personally think it is the hippopotamus, but scholars are divided on this.  Some think it is a creature which no longer exists.  But notice that its sole purpose is not to be a danger or to be a killer of people, but it just eats grass and sits around without a clear purpose.  God seems to say that this is okay.  No human can control it, and if you were to try it would put your life in danger, but this animal simply sits around and does nothing and no one can object to that.

Behemoth is the Hebrew term for animal in the plural form.  Just for clarity sake, there are no hippos in the Jordan river.  Some scholars who try to force science into this context claim that there are fossils of hippos that were found in that region.  I don’t have a strong opinion except knowing that this is not the point.  The point is that God does not need to create creatures or people with specific purposes or reasons.  He can just create and not have them spin or toil or do anything for any productive reasons.  You can’t always figure out the purpose of God’s actions.  That’s a great lesson.