Behemoth

God is speaking to Job, and He wants to show him something enormous. Out of everything He could have named — mountains, storms, the sea — He points at an animal and says: look at that one.

Read the description slowly, because every line tells you something. *He eateth grass as an ox — this giant is a plant eater. His bones are like bars of iron — he is built heavy. The chief of the ways of God* — of all the creatures God is naming in this speech, this one is the greatest.

And then the line that stops people: *he moveth his tail like a cedar.* A cedar is one of the largest trees in the world. Study Bible notes often suggest the hippopotamus or the elephant here, and both are magnificent plant eaters — but a hippo's tail is a few inches long, and an elephant's is like a rope. Neither is a cedar.

We cannot be certain which animal Job was looking at. God did not give us a name we could look up, and He was not writing a field guide — He was showing a man how small he was. But whatever behemoth was, God said I made him. And He made him *with thee*, Job. Same week.