Job 40

Job 40:3-5

The Response of Job (40:3-5) To the evidence that has been offered. Job has no answer. In effect he does “yield,” at least to the point established by the foregoing speech namely, that in view of all the incomprehensibility around him he is “of small account.” There is more to come, but at least at this point one may say that Job has changed orientation. Formerly he has insisted that his reasons take priority and that he be regarded as a central issue in God’s rule. Upon his case, he has insisted, the righteousness of God must be made to depend. Now the scene has shifted until he and his evidence are on the edge of a great circle of evidence, too vast to comprehend but which must ultimately be included in any attack on or any justification of the ways of God. It should not be forgotten that if the evidence just cited by the Lord contraverts Job’s attempt to define too narrowly the elements by which one comes to know God, it far more contradicts the little confidences of the friends who believe that they have arrived at a definition of God’s righteousness on the basis of human experience.

Job 40:6-14

Behemoth and Leviathan (40:6-41:34) Introductory Summons (40:6-14) After Job’s answer, which, it must be admitted, is partial and relatively noncommital, the Book of Job represents the Lord as marshaling still more evidence to be considered in the case at hand. This second speech is often regarded by interpreters as not a part of the original work, the main reasons being found in the content and in the somewhat altered style. Certainly there is a major difference: where the former evidences have been cited in sharp and brief allusions, these two pictures of Behemoth and Leviathan are extraordinarily detailed and contain exaggerated features. It is entirely possible that they include parts of poetic pictures of these beasts, composed before the writing of the Book of Job, or even after it. In the first case they could have been utilized by the author, as perhaps he used the poem on wisdom in chapter 28; in the latter case they would, of course, have been inserted by later editors who found them consonant with the original work.

At the same time, it should be stressed that something belongs here. Job’s confession in 40:2-5 is by no means complete and we cannot conceive of an ending to the book at this point. Moreover, this speech is introduced in a strongly repetitious way, with 40:6-7 practically paralleling 38:1-3. It would be incredible if some later editor would have thus repeated; one can only assume that the original author intended the two speeches to stand as parallel evidences, the first pointing to the remarkable and non-classifiable features of the natural world, the second to two isolated instances which also have some overtones of ancient mythology, and which therefore suit the author’s purpose of stressing God’s power. For the author of Job, the mythological features are of course only poetic expressions.

The question stated in parallel in verse 8 brings us to the central issue, which is not so much the impropriety of bringing a case to God as the underlying intent of such action, conscious or no, which is to “deny” or “make ineffectual” the justice or righteous rule of God. Job, it must be remembered, could find no reason within the usual standards of human righteousness to call himself “unrighteous.” By maintaining his own righteousness as unimpeachable he must necessarily impeach the righteousness of God. To “justify” himself he must “condemn” God. Here is a classic view of man in any attempt at self-justification, whether to himself or to his neighbor or to his God. Job could be justified by God (so in the Prologue) and God could himself still be just, but if Job must have the security of being assured of his righteousness by mechanical or rational proofs then he must ever be in the position of condemning God. Only by accepting the verdict of God — and such a verdict must be accepted on the basis of faith — could Job come to any resolution of his problem.

Verses 9-14 prepare for the culmination of the Lord’s address to Job. It is an ironic challenge to Job to assume control of the world, to express his “anger” in righteous judgments on the wicked, to dispense justice in absolute rectitude. When he has so done — that is, when he has reordered the world to conform to his own principles and standards, and has done so rightly — then God himself will “acknowledge” him. God will accept Job’s own self-estimate. But the original goes deeper here. The literal meaning of the verb in the first line of verse 14 is “praise,” the word normally being used of man’s worship of God.

If Job can do what he is challenged to do — and what implicitly his argument has assumed he can do — then he will be God. The ancient sin of the pair in the Garden, with their attempt to be “like God” (Genesis 3:5), is here seen to be Job’s. Every effort at self -justification must ultimately stand under the same condemnation.

Job 40:15-24

Behold Behemoth (40:15-24) The general features of the description and the Egyptian setting (“lotus plants,” “the river”) make it clear that the animal here described is a hippopotamus. At the same time certain other features, such as the exaggerations and the phrase “the first of the works of God,” bring to mind a mythological beast. It is possible that the author meant both, and used the actual, and strange, Egyptian animal to typify the extraordinary and superhuman elements in creation which, no less than the familiar animals of chapter 39, are under the control of God. The point of the first speech was Job’s inability to understand, and the evidence was drawn from the vast and irrational elements of the world. Here the point is Job’s inability to control, following the line of the introductory questions.

God himself made Behemoth (vs. 15). He is one of the “works of God” and yet is utterly beyond man’s control. He resists all attempts to capture him (vs. 24, although the margin of the Revised Standard Version is probably the correct rendering, the phrase “in his eyes” referring to a popular belief that the real hippopotamus was captured as his eyes were blinded with clay).