Behemoth

From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)

Behemoth is the name of a creature mentioned in the Book of Job, 40:15-24. In Hebrew it can be rendered as בהמות, Bəhēmôth, Behemot, B'hemot; in Arabic بهيموث (Bahīmūth) or بهموت (Bahamūt) .

The word is most likely a plural form of בהמה (bəhēmāh ("animal")). It may be an example of pluralis excellentiae, a Hebrew method of expressing greatness by pluralizing a noun; it thus indicates that Behemoth is the largest and most powerful animal.

Metaphorically, the name has come to be used for any extremely large or powerful creature.

1 Characteristics
2 Meaning
3 Other cultures
4 In popular culture
5 Further reading
6 External links

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Characteristics

The text from the Book of Job 40 (King James Version Bible) is as follows:

15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
16 Lo now, his strength [is] in his loins, and his force [is] in the navel of his belly.
17 He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.
18 His bones [are as] strong pieces of brass; his bones [are] like bars of iron.
19 He [is] the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can make his sword to approach [unto him].
20 Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play.
21 He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
22 The shady trees cover him [with] their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about.
23 Behold, he drinketh up a river, [and] hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.
24 He taketh it with his eyes: [his] nose pierceth through snares.

The passage describes a large powerful animal that appears to be herbivorous (40:15).

In Jewish belief, Behemoth is the primal unconquerable monster of the land, as Leviathan is the primal monster of the waters of the sea and Ziz the primordial monster of the sky.

There is a legend that the Leviathan and the Behemoth shall hold the battle of the end of the world. They shall kill each other and a huge number of other creatures in the big battle. The two will finally kill each other, and the surviving men will feast on their meat. According to midrash recording traditions, it is impossible for anyone to kill a behemoth except for the person who created it, in this case Yahweh. A later Jewish haggadic tradition furthermore holds that at the banquet at the end of the world, the behemoth will be served up along with the leviathan and ziz.

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Meaning

Behemoth can be interpreted as a mythical animal. However, some have attempted to identify it with real-life animals.

In the book of Job, both Behemoth and Leviathan are listed alongside a number of mundane animals, such as goats, eagles, and hawks, leading many Christian scholars to surmise that Behemoth and Leviathan may also be mundane creatures. Suggested animals include the water buffalo and the elephant, but the most common suggestion is the hippopotamus. Some readers also identify a hippopotamus in Isaiah's bahamot negeb or "beasts of the south" (30:6). Indeed, one of the Russian words for hippopotamus is "behemoth," which does not carry the same mythical connotations in Russian. Although the animal's tail "moves like a cedar" (40:17), an unlikely description for any of these animals, "tail' could be a euphemism for an elephant's trunk (Mitchell, 1987). Moreover, some suggest that "tail" is a euphemism for male genitalia. Support for this is based on another meaning of the Hebrew word "move" which means "extend" and on the second part of verse 17 describing the sinew around its "stones" [the Vulgate uses the word "testiculorum"].

Others disagree, pointing to the fact that Behemoth is called "chief of the ways of God" (40:19), indicating that it is not a mere animal.

Another proposal is that the Behemoth is a dinosaur. The Apatosaurus is usually proposed since the large sauropods had tails "like a cedar". Adherents to this viewpoint hold that it is more consistent with the literal application of the text. On the other hand, it is widely held that most dinosaurs were wiped out at least 60 million years ago and the human species didn't exist at that time. A cursory knowledge of apatosaurus dentition shows that, though it was most definitely herbivorous, this dinosaur could not and did not "eateth grass like an ox" for two reasons: 1) grasses were not yet found in the apatosurus's environment and 2) apatosurus had needle-shaped teeth best suited for stripping leaves off of branches. Additionally, opponents of this theory argue that the text is probably allegory at best. But some believers in the literal truth of the Bible hold that much of our science about the history of the earth is based on faulty or incomplete knowledge, and that if dinosaurs existed, then they co-existed with ancient men. It is claimed that credence is given to this thought line because the word 'dinosaur' was not widely in use until the 1860's, while the verses were transliterated more than 50 years earlier.

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Other cultures

The Hebrew behemoth is sometimes equated with the Persian Hadhayosh, as the leviathan is with the Kar and the ziz with the Simurgh.

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In popular culture

Behemoth is sometimes used to state something very large. For example: a behemoth of a machine is a machine that is very, very large and does its work in a slow, untrustful way.

Behemoth is the name of "Big Daddy" Don Bodine's monster truck in the film Reservoir Dogs.

Behemoth is a rare and powerful monster in the Final Fantasy series.

Behemoth is Monster in My Pocket #4, resembling a bipedal version of Blake's artwork, and appears in the sixth and final stage of the video game. While the player is on a descending platform, three at a time come out of tower windows and leap to try to force their bulk against the player.

Behemoth is also a mini-boss monster in Kingdom Hearts.

Behemoth is an AT Team in the manga/anime Air Gear.

Behemoth is a fourth level monster in Heroes of Might and Magic IV.

Two monsters are named "Behemoth" in Power Rangers, one of these monsters appeared in Power Rangers: Mystic Force and is actually named after a monster that is called a Behemoth in the series' Japanese counterpart Mahou Sentai Magiranger.

Behemoth is also the name of a Polish blackened death metal band.

The giant dinosaurian Pokémon Groudon is depicted as Behemoth, the god of The Land and The Sun, while the giant orcan Pokémon Kyogre resembles the god of The Sea and The Moon.

"Behemoth" is an insult aimed at Deuce's very tall date in the film Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo

"Behemoth" appears in the form of a giant, anthropomorphic cat (also Begemont), in the Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita. This behemoth is an assistant to Satan, referred to as Woland.

The Title mecha in the Anime series the Big O is referred to as "Behemoth" on several occasions. The sea beast leviathan and the giant bird ziz are also referenced in the forms of two mechs of similar design. Similarly to the myth that the Behemoth and Leviathan are to kill each other the end of the world, the "Behemoth" and "Leviathan" of this series combat each other in the series finale.

"Behemoth" is a huge AS (Arms Slave) mecha in the hit anime series Full Metal Panic, officially called Plan 1501 it is owned and developed by a terrorist group called A21 and is powered by a Lambda Driver, its huge construction and mechanical integrity is dependent on the power produced by the lambda driver. The colossal AS “Behemoth” is piloted by Takuma Kugayama. This gigantic AS is nearly 40 meters in height, and if the Lambda Drivers are not activated upon startup, this massive AS would collapse under its own weight. In spite of its large size, the Behemoth moves rather quickly. Its main weapons include a huge sword suitable for its body size, and a cluster of 30mm cannons mounted in the head. There is not a lot of tactical data available about the Behemoth, and thus most of its secrets remain unknown.

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