Literal translation of the word Behemoth—Various theories respecting the identity of the animal—The Hippopotamus known to the ancient Hebrews—Geographical range of the animal—"He eateth grass like the ox"—Ravages of the Hippopotamus among the crops—Structure of the mouth and teeth—The "sword or scythe" of the Hippopotamus—Some strange theories—Haunts of the Hippopotamus—The Egyptian hunter—A valuable painting—Strength of the Hippopotamus—Rising of the Nile—Modern hunters— Wariness of the Hippopotamus—The pitfall and the drop-trap.
IN the concluding part of that wonderful poem which is so familiar to us as the Book of Job, the Lord is represented as reproving the murmurs of Job, by showing that he could not even understand the mysteries of the universe, much less the purposes of the Creator. By presuming to bring a charge of injustice against his Maker, he in fact inferred that the accuser was more competent to govern the world than was the Creator, and thus laid himself open to the unanswerable irony of the splendid passages contained in chapters 40, 41., which show that man cannot even rule the animals, his fellow-creatures, much less control the destinies of the human race.
The passages with which we are at present concerned are to be found at the end of the fortieth chapter, and contain a most powerful description of some animal which is called by the name of Behemoth. Now this word only occurs once in the whole of the Scriptures, i.e. in Job 40:1515Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. (Job 40:15): “Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee," &c. Some commentators in consequence of the plural termination of the word, which may be literally translated as" beasts," have thought that it was a collective term for all the largest beasts of the world, such as the elephant, the hippopotamus, the wild cattle, and their like. Others have thought that the elephant was signified by the word Behemoth; and some later writers, acquainted with palæon-tology, have put forward a conjecture that the Behemoth must have been some extinct pachydermatous animal, like the dinotherium, in which might be combined many of the qualities of the elephant and hippopotamus.
It is now, however, agreed by all Biblical scholars and naturalists, that the hippopotamus, and no other animal, is the creature which was signified by the word Behemoth, and this interpretation is followed in the Jewish Bible.
We will, now take the whole of the passage, and afterward examine it by degrees, comparing the Authorized Version with the Jewish Bible, and noting at the same time one or two variations in the rendering of certain phrases. The passage is given as follows in the Jewish Bible, and may be compared with our Authorized Version:" Behold now the river-horse, which I have made with thee: he eateth grass like an ox.
“Lo vigor is in the muscles of his body.
“He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his thighs are wrapped together.
“His bones are pipes of copper; his bones are like bars of iron.
“He is the chief of the ways of God: he that made him can a lone reach his sword.
“That the mountains should bring forth food for him, and all the beasts of the field play there.
“He lieth under wild lotuses, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
“Wild lotuses cover him with their shadow; willows of the brook compass him about.
“Behold, should a river overflow, he hasteth not: he feels secure should Jordan burst forth up to his mouth.
“He taketh it in with his eyes: his nose pierceth through snares.”
We will now take this description in detail, and see how far it applies to the now familiar habits of the hippopotamus. A little allowance must of course be made for poetical imagery, but we shall find that in all important details the account of the Behemoth agrees perfectly with the appearance and habits of the hippopotamus.
In the first place, it is evident that we may dismiss from our minds the idea that the Behemoth was an extinct pachyderm. The whole tenor of the passage shows that it must have been an animal then existing, and whose habits were familiar to Job and his friends. Now the date of the Book of Job could not have been earlier than about 1500 B.C., and in, consequence, the ideas of a Paleozoic animal must be discarded.
We may also dismiss the elephant, inasmuch as it was most unlikely that Job should have known anything about the animal, and it is certain that he could not have attained the familiarity with its appearance and habits which is inferred by the context. Moreover, it cannot be said of the elephant that "he eateth grass as an ox." The elephant feeds chiefly on the leaves of trees, and when he does eat grass, he cannot do so “like an ox," but plucks it with his proboscis, and then puts the green tufts into his mouth. So characteristic a gesture as this would never have passed unnoticed in a description so full of detail.
That the hippopotamus was known to the ancient Hebrews is certain. After their sojourn in Egypt they had necessarily become familiarized with it; and if, as most commentators believe, the date of the Book of Job be subsequent to the liberation of the Israelites, there is no difficulty in assuming that Job and his companions were well acquainted with the animal. Even if the book be of an earlier date, it is still possible that the hippopotamus may, in those days, have lived in rivers where it is now as much extinct as it is in England. Mr. Tristram remarks on this point: "No hippopotamus is found in Asia, but there is no reason for asserting that it may not have had an eastern range as far as Palestina, and wallowed in the Jordan; for its bones are found in the debris of the rivers of Algeria, flowing into the Mediterranean, when tradition is quite silent as to its former existence.
“Several extinct species of hippopotamus have been found in the later tertiary deposits, both of England and other countries of Europe, embedded in grave' which contains shells of many existing species of the locality, showing that the temperature has not much changed, and that some of the fossil species were natives of cold and temperate climes.”
There is no doubt that the hippopotamus and the urus were the two largest animals known to the Jews, and it is probably on that account that the former received the name of Behemoth. Assuming, therefore, that the Behemoth is identical with the hippopotamus, we will proceed with the description.
The words “whom I trade with thee “have been variously translated. Some Hebraists render them as, "whom I made near thee," i.e. near or in the country in which Job lived.
Others read the words, “like as thee," i.e. that the Behemoth was the fellow-creature of Job. Others again understand them as signifying that the man and the animal were contemporaneous, and the passage should be read, “whom I made at the same time with thee." Whichever interpretation we adopt, it is evident that a parallel of some kind is drawn between the man and the beast.
“He eateth grass like the ox."The word which is here rendered “grass" is translated in Numb. 11:55We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: (Numbers 11:5) as “leeks." It means, something that is green, and is probably used to signify green herbage of any description. Now it is perfectly true of the hippopotamus that it eats grass like an ox, or like cattle, as the passage may be translated. In order to supply its huge massive body with nourishment, it consumes vast quantities of food, as indeed may be inferred from the structure of its mouth and jaws. The mouth is enormously broad and shovel-shaped, so as to take in a large quantity of food at once; and the gape is so vide, that when the animal opens its jaws to their full extent it seems to split its head into two nearly equal portions. This great mobility of jaw is assisted by the peculiar form of the gape, which takes a sudden turn upwards, and reaches almost to the eyes.
Just as the mouth is formed to contain a vast quantity of food, so the jaws and teeth are made to procure it. From the front of the lower jaw the incisor teeth project horizontally, no longer performing the ordinary duties of teeth, but being modified into tusks, which are in all probability used as levers for prizing up the vegetables on which the animal lives. But the most singular portion of the jaw is the mode in which the canine teeth are modified so as to resemble the incisor teeth of rodents, and to perform a similar office.
These teeth are very long, curved, and chisel-edged at their tips, their shape being preserved by continual attrition, just as has been mentioned of the hyrax. The material of the teeth is peculiarly hard, so much so, indeed, that it is in great request for artificial teeth, the "verniers” of philosophical instruments, and similar purposes. Consequently, with these teeth the hippopotamus can cut through the stems of thick and strong herbage as with shears, and the strength of its jaws is so great that an angered hippopotamus has been known to bite a man completely in two, and to crush a canoe to fragments with a single movement of its enormous jaws.
Keeping this description in our minds, we shall see how true is the statement in verse 19. This passage is not adequately rendered in the Authorized Version: the word which is translated as "sword” also signifies a scythe, and evidently having that meaning in the text. The passage is best translated thus: “His Maker hath furnished him with his scythe.”
The havoc which such an animal can make among growing crops may be easily imagined. It is fond of leaving the river, and forcing its way into cultivated grounds, where it eats vast quantities of green food, and destroys as much as it cats, by the trampling of its heavy feet. Owing to the width' of the animal, the feet are placed very far apart, and the consequence is that the hippopotamus makes a double path, the feet of each side trampling down the herbage, and causing the track to look like a double rut, with an elevated ridge between them.
Some little difficulty has been made respecting the passage in verse 20, "Surely the mountains bring him forth food." Commentators ignorant of the habits of the hippopotamus, and not acquainted with the character of the country where it lives, have thought that the animal only lived in the rivers, and merely found its food along its banks, or at most upon the marshes at the river-side. The hippopotamus, say they, is not a dweller on the mountains, but an inhabitant of the river, and therefore this, passage cannot rightly be applied to the animal.
Now, in the first place, the word harim, which is translated as "mountains" in the Authorized Version, is rendered as "hills" by many Hebraists. Moreover, as we know from many passages of Scripture, the word “mountain " is applied to any elevated spot, without reference to its height. Such places are very common along the banks of the Nile, and are employed for the culture of vegetables, which would not grow properly upon the flat and marshy lands around them. There spots are very attractive to the hippopotamus, who likes a change of diet, and thus finds food upon the mountains. In many parts of Egypt the river runs through a mountainous country, so that the hills are within a very short distance of the water, and are easily reached by the hippopotamus.
The Talmudical writers exaggerated, after their custom, the dimensions, voracity, and other attributes of the Behemoth. They said that the animal devoured daily the herbage of a thousand hills, but that, in order to prevent the devastation of the world which such voracity would occasion, the herbage was miraculously renewed every night. Only two of the Behemoth were ever created, and, lest they should increase in numbers, and destroy every green thing on the face of the card', they were made incapable of propagating their kind. There are other legends of the Behemoth too puerile to be narrated.
We will now proceed to the next verse. After mentioning that the Behemoth can eat grass like an ox, and finds its food upon the hills, the sacred writer proceeds to show that in its moments of repose it is an inhabitant of the rivers and marshy ground: "He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and fens.
“The shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about.”
Here I may remind the reader that the compound Hebrew word which is rendered in the Authorized Version as "shady trees" is translated by some persons as "wild lotuses"—a rendering which is followed by the editor of the Jewish Bible. Apparently, however, the Authorized Version gives a more correct meaning of the term. Judging from a well-known 'Egyptian painting, which represents a hunter in the act of harpooning the hippopotamus, the tan papyrus reeds are the plants that are signified by this word, which occurs in no other place in the Scriptures.
Nothing can be more accurate than this description of the habits of the animal. I have now before me a number of sketches by Mr. T. Baines, representing various incidents in the life of the hippopotamus; and in one or two of them, the little islands that stud the river, as well as the banks themselves, are thickly clothed with reeds mixed with papyrus, the whole being exactly similar to those which are represented in the conventional style of Egyptian art. These spots are the favorite haunts' of the hippopotamus, which loves to lie under their shadow, its whole body remaining concealed in the water, and only the eyes, ears, and nostrils appearing above the surface.
As reference will be made to this painting when we come to the Leviathan, it will be as well to describe it in detail. In order that the reader should fully understand it, I have had it translated, so to speak, from the conventional outline of Egyptian art into perspective, exactly as has been done with the Assyrian and Egyptian chariots.
In the foreground is seen the hunter, standing on a boat that closely resembles the raft-boat which is still in use in several parts of Africa. It is made of the very light wood called ambatch, by cutting down the requisite number of trees, laying them side by side so that their bases form the stern and their points the bow of the extemporized boat. They are then firmly lashed together, the pointed ends turned upwards, and the simple vessel is complete, It is, in fact, nothing more than a raft of triangular shape, but the wood is so buoyant that it answers every purpose.
In his hand the hunter grasps the harpoon which he is about to launch at the hippopotamus. This is evidently the same weapon which is still employed for that purpose. It consists of a long shaft, into the end of which a barbed iron point is loosely inserted. To the iron point is attached one end of a rope, and te the other end, which is held in the left hand of the harpooner, a float of ambatch wood is fastened.
When the weapon is thrown, the furious struggles of the wounded animal disengage the shaft of the harpoon, which is regained by the hunter; and as it dashes through the water, throwing up spray as it goes, the ambatch float keeps the end of the rope at the surface, so that it can be seen as soon as the animal becomes quieter. Sometimes it dives to the bottom, and remains there as long as its breath can hold out; and when it comes up to breathe, it only pushes the nostrils out of the water under the shadow of the reeds, so that but for the float it might manage to escape.
In the meantime, guided by the float, the hunter follows the course of the animal, and, as soon as it comes within reach of his weapon, driver another Spear into it, and so proceeds until the animal dies from loss of blood. The modern hunters never throw a second harpoon unless the one already fixed gives way. mainly employing a spear to inflict the last wounds. But if we may judge from this painting, the Egyptian hunter attached a new rope with every cast of his weapon, and, when the hippopotamus became weak from its wounds, gathered up the ropes and carne to close quarters.
In the bow of the boat is the hunter's assistant, armed with a rope made lasso-wise into a noose, which he is throwing over the head of the hippopotamus, whose attitude and expression show evidently, in spite of the rudeness of the drawing, the impotent anger of the weakened animal.
Behind the hippopotamus are the tall and dense reeds and papyrus under the shelter of which the animal loves to lie, and on the surface of the water float the beautiful white flowers of the lotus.
In the Egyptian painting, the artist, in spite of the conventionalities to which he was bound, has depicted the whole scene with skill and spirit. The head and open mouth of the hippopotamus are remarkably fine, and show that the artist who drew the animal must have seen it when half mad with pain, and half dead from loss of blood.
The enormous strength of the hippopotamus is shown in verses 16, 18, the last of which passages requires a little explanation. Two different words are used here to express the bones of the animal. The first is derived from a word signifying strength, and means the “strong bones," i.e. those of the legs. These are hollow, and are therefore aptly compared to tubes or pipes of copper. The second term is thought by some Hebraists to refer to the rib-bones, which are solid, and therefore are not likened to tubes, but to bars of iron.
The 23rd verse has been translated rather variously. The Authorized Version can be seen by reference to a Bible, and another translation, that of the Jewish Bible, is given on page 320. A third, and perhaps the best rendering of this passage is given by the Rev. W. Drake, in Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible:" "Lo, the river swelleth proudly against him, yet he is not alarmed; he is securely confident though a Jordan burst forth against his mouth.”
In all probability reference is here made to the annual rising of the Nile, and the inundations which it causes. In some years, when it rises lunch above its usual height, the floods become most disastrous. Whole villages are swept away, and scarcely a vestige of the mud-built houses is left; the dead bodies of human beings are seen intermixed with those of cattle, and the whole country is one scene of desolation. Yet the almost amphibious hippopotamus tares nothing for the floods, as long as it can find food, and so, “though the river swelleth proudly against him," he is not alarmed.
From the use of the word "Jordan” in the same verse, it might be thought that the river of Palestine was intended. This, however, is not the case. The word "Jordan" is simply used as a poetical term for any river, and is derived from a Hebrew word which signifies "descending quickie.”
We now come to the Last verse of this noble description: “He taketh it in with his eyes." There words have also been variously rendered, some translating them as “He receiveth it (i.e. the river) up to his eyes." But the translation which seems to suit the context best is, “Who will take him when in his sight? His hose pierceth through (i.e. detects) snares." Now, this faculty of detecting snares is one of the chief characteristics of the hippopotamus, when it lives near places inhabited by mankind, who are always doing their best to destroy it. In the first place, its body gives them an almost unlimited supply of flesh, the fat is very highly valued for many purposes, the teeth are sold to the ivory-dealers, and the hide is cut up into whips, or khoorbashes.
There is now before me a khoorbash, purchased from a native Egyptian who was beating a servant with it. The whip is identical with that which was used by the ancient Egyptians in urging the Israelites to their tasks, and the scene reminded the traveler so forcibly of the old Scriptural times that he rescued the unfortunate servant, and purchased the khoorbash, which is now in my collection.
Not content with hunting the hippopotamus, the natives contrive various traps, either pitfalls or drop-traps. The former are simply pits dug in the path of the animal, covered with sticks and reeds, and having 'at the bottom a sharp stake on which the victim is impaled, and so effectually prevented from escaping or damaging the pit by its struggles.
The drop-trap is a lob of wood, weighted with stones, and having at one end an iron spike, which is sometimes poisoned.
The path which the animal takes is watched, a conveniently overhanging branch is selected, and from that branch the cruel spear is suspended, by a catch or trigger, exactly over the center of the path. There is no difficulty in finding the precise center of the path, owing to the peculiar gait of the animal, which has already been described. One end of the trigger supports the spear, and to the other is attached a rope, which is brought across the path in such a way that when touched it relieves the spear, which is drive') deeply into the animal's back. If well hung, the spear-blade divides the spine, and the wounded animal fans on the spot, but, even if it should miss a vital part, the poison soon does its fatal work.
In consequence of the continual persecution to which it is subjected, the hippopotamus becomes exceedingly wary, and, huge, clumsy, and blundering as it looks, is clever enough to detect either pitfall or drop-trap that have not been contrived with especial tare. An old and experienced hippopotamus becomes so wary that he will be suspicious even of a bent twig, and, rather than venture across it, he will leave the path, force for himself a roundabout passage, and return to the path beyond the object that alarmed him.
Mr. T. Baines, to whose sketches I am indebted for the illustration, told me that the hippopotamus is possessed of much more intellect than might be expected from a creature of so dull, clumsy, and unpromising aspect. Apathetic it generally is, and, as long as it is left unmolested, does not care to molest even the human beings that intrude upon its repose.
It likes to lie in the shade of the reeds and rushes, and may be seen floating in the water, with only the nostrils, the eyes, and the ears above the surface, these organs being set in a line along the head, evidently for the purpose of allowing the whole body to be hidden under water while the three most important senses are capable of acting.
A canoe-man who knows the habits of the hippopotamus will fearlessly take his fragile vessel through a herd of the animals, knowing that, if he only avoids contact with them, they will not interfere with him. The only danger is, that a hippopotamus may rise under the canoe, and strike itself against the boat, in which case the animal is rather apt to consider the intruding object as an enemy, and to attack it, sometimes crushing the canoe between its teeth, and mostly upsetting it, and throwing the crew into the water. In such a case, the men always dive at once to the bottom of the river, and hold on to some weed or rock as long as they can exist without breathing. The reason for this proceeding is, that the hippopotamus always looks for its enemy upon the surface of the water, and, if the men were to swim to shore, they would be caught and killed before they had swum many strokes. But, as it sees nothing but the damaged canoe, its short-lived anger vanishes, and it sinks again into the river, leaving the men at liberty to regain and repair their vessel.
There is one passage in the description of the Behemoth which requires a few words of explanation: “He moveth his tail like a cedar" (v. 17).
Several commentators have imagined that this expression shows that the Behemoth must have been an animal which had a very long and powerful tail, and have adduced the passage as a proof that the crocodile was the animal that was signified by the Behemoth. Others, again, have shifted the position of the tail, and, by rendering it as the “proboscis," have identified the Behemoth with the elephant. There is, however, no necessity for straining the interpretation, the passage evidently signifying that the member in question is stiff and inflexible as the cedar-stem.