Job 40:19-24 19 He is the firstling of the ways of God;
He, his Maker, reached to him his sword. 20 For the mountains bring forth food for him,
And all the beasts of the field play beside him. 21 Under the lote-trees he lieth down,
In covert of reeds and marsh. 22 Lote-trees cover him as shade,
The willows of the brook encompass him. 23 Behold, if the stream is strong, he doth not quake;
He remaineth cheerful, if a Jordan breaketh forth upon his mouth. 24 Just catch him while he is looking,
With snares let one pierce his nose!
God’s ways is the name given to God’s operations as the Creator of the world in Job 40:19 (comp. Job 26:14, where His acts as the Ruler of the world are included); and the firstling of these ways is called the Behêmôth, not as one of the first in point of time, but one of the hugest creatures, un chef-d'oeuvre de Dieu (Bochart); ראשׁית not as Pro 8:22; Num 24:20, of the priority of time, but as Amo 6:1, Amo 6:6, of rank. The art. in העשׁו is, without the pronominal suff. being meant as an accusative (Ew. §290, d), equal to a demonstrative pronoun (comp. Ges. §109, init): this its Creator (but so that “this” does not refer back so much as forwards). It is not meant that He reached His sword to behêmoth, but (on which account לו is intentionally wanting) that He brought forth, i.e., created, its (behêmoth’s) peculiar sword, viz., the gigantic incisors ranged opposite one another, with which it grazes upon the meadow as with a sickle: ἀρούρῃσιν κακὴν ἐπιβάλλεται ἅρπην (Nicander, Theriac. 566), ἅρπη is exactly the sickle-shaped Egyptian sword (harpu = חרב). Vegetable food (to which its teeth are adapted) is appointed to the behêmoth: “for the mountains produce food for him;” it is the herbage of the hills (which is scanty in the lower and more abundant in the upper valley of the Nile) that is intended, after which this uncouth animal climbs (vid., Schlottm.). בּוּל is neither a contraction of יבוּל (Ges.), nor a corruption of it (Ew.), but Hebraeo-Arab. = baul, produce, from bâla, to beget, comp. aballa, to bear fruit (prop. seed, bulal), root בל, to soak, wet, mix.Job 40:20 describes how harmless, and if unmolested, inoffensive, the animal is; שׁם there, viz., while it is grazing.
In Job 40:21 Saadia correctly translates: Arab. tḥt 'l - ḍâl ; and Job 40:22, Abulwalid: Arab. ygṭı̂h 'l - ḍl mdlllâ lh , tegit eum lotus obumbrans eum, by interpreting Arab. 'l - ḍl , more correctly Arab. 'l - ḍâl , with es - sidr el - berrı̂ , i.e., Rhamnus silvestris (Rhamnus Lotus, Linn.), in connection with which Schultens’ observation is to be noticed: Cave intelligas lotum Aegyptiam s. plantam Niloticam quam Arabes Arab. nûfr. The fact that the wild animals of the steppe seek the shade of the lote-tree, Schultens has supported by passages from the poets. The lotus is found not only in Syria, but also in Egypt, and the whole of Africa.
The plur. is formed from the primary form צאל, as שׁקמים from שׁקם, Olsh. §148, b; the single tree was perhaps called צאלה (= Arab. ḍâlt), as שׁקמה (Ew. §189, h). Ammianus Marc. xxii. 15 coincides with Job 40:21: Inter arundines celsas et squalentes nimia densitate haec bellua cubilia ponit. צללו, Job 40:22 (resolved from צלּו, as גּללו, Job 20:7, from גּלּו), is in apposition with the subj.: Lote-trees cover it as its shade (shading it). The double play of words in Job 40:22 is not reproduced in the English translation. הן, Job 40:23, pointing to something possible, obtains almost the signification of a conditional particle, as Job 12:14; Job 23:8; Isa 54:15. The Arabic version appropriately translates Arab. 'n ṭgâ 'l - nhr , for Arab. ṭgâ denotes exactly like עשׁק, excessive, insolent behaviour, and is then, as also Arab. dlm , ‛tâ , and other verbs given by Schultens, transferred from the sphere of ethics to the overflow of a river beyond its banks, to the rush of raging waters, to the rising and bursting forth of swollen streams. It does not, however, terrify the behêmoth, which can live as well in the water as on the land; לא יחפּוז, properly, it does not spring up before it, is not disturbed by it. Instead of the Jordan, Job 40:23, especially in connection with יגיח, the 'Gaihûn (the Oxus) or the 'Gaihân (the Pyramus) might have been mentioned, which have their names from the growing force with which they burst forth from their sources (גּיח, גּוּח, comp. 'gâcha , to wash away). But in order to express the notion of a powerful and at times deep-swelling stream, the poet prefers the ירדּן of his fatherland, which moreover, does not lie so very far from the scene, according to the conception at least, since all the wadis in its neighbourhood flow directly or indirectly (as Wâdi el-Meddân, the boundary river between the district of Suwêt and the Nukra plain) into the Jordan. For ירדּן (perhaps from ירד) does not here signify a stream (rising in the mountain) in general; the name is not deprived of its geographical definiteness, but is a particularizing expression of the notion given above.
The description closes in Job 40:24 with the ironical challenge: in its sight (בּעיניו as Pro 1:17) let one (for once) catch it; let one lay a snare which, when it goes into it, shall spring together and pierce it in the nose; i.e., neither the open force nor the stratagem, which one employs with effect with other animals, is sufficient to overpower this monster. מוקשׁים is generally rendered as equal to חחים, Isa 37:29; Eze 19:4, or at least to the cords drawn through them, but contrary to the uniform usage of the language. The description of the hippopotamus is not followed by that of the crocodile, which also elsewhere form a pair, e.g., in Achilles Tatius, iv. 2, 19. Behemoth and leviathan, says Herder, are the pillars of Hercules at the end of the book, the non plus ultra of another world distant from the scene. What the same writer says of the poet, that he does not “mean to furnish any contributions to Pennant’s Zoologie or to Linnaeus’ Animal Kingdom,” the expositor also must assent to.