“Nothing is so strong as gentleness, and nothing is so gentle as real strength.” —Francis de Sales
We now come to two unfamiliar but remarkable creatures. Behemoth is a land animal (Job 40:15-24); Leviathon is a sea creature. The word behêmôt is the plural form of an unused root, probably meaning “mute,” perhaps the origin of the phrase “dumb animal.” Even so, the word is mysterious, and the description doesn’t seem to fit any extant creature. Creation scientists suggest it may be some species of sauropod, a large plant-eating dinosaur like the Diplodocus or the Apatosaurus. Dr. Henry M. Morris describes the latter: “The fossils indicate it was between 70 and 90 feet long and nearly 15 feet high at the hips. The tail was about 50 feet long (remember the cedar tree), and it had peg-like teeth that suggest its diet was plants. The legs were like columns. Estimates suggest that the animal weighed around 35 tons.” Notice some details here. The Lord says, “the behemoth…I made along with you” (v 15). When an unbeliever wants to argue young earth vs old earth with me, I respond, “I wasn’t there and God doesn’t tell us when, but did you know the same scripture tells us that God made two genders, marriage is heterosexual and intended for life, everyone is born a sinner, and that’s why we need a virgin-born Savior?” That’s worth talking about! But behemoth has more to teach us. Although “his strength is in his hips, and…his bones are like beams of bronze, his ribs like bars of iron” (vv 16-18), yet “he eats grass like an ox” (v 15), other animals aren’t intimidated by him (v 20), and he remains calm in crisis (vv 23-24). As “the first of the ways of God” (v 19), he reflects his creator in these ways. God’s greatness doesn’t negate His gentleness, as Job will see. So today, “Let your gentleness be evident to all” (Php 4:5).