Job 1:13

Job’s Integrity in Adversity ¹ 

1:13 Now the day ²  came when Job’s ³  sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house,

Job 40:15

The Description of Behemoth ⁴ 

40:15 “Look now at Behemoth, ⁵  which I made as ⁶  I made you;

it eats grass like the ox.

[1:13]  ¹ sn The series of catastrophes and the piety of Job is displayed now in comprehensive terms. Everything that can go wrong goes wrong, and yet Job, the pious servant of Yahweh, continues to worship him in the midst of the rubble. This section, and the next, will lay the foundation for the great dialogues in the book.

[1:13]  ² tn The Targum to Job clarifies that it was the first day of the week. The fact that it was in the house of the firstborn is the reason.

[1:13]  ³ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Job) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[40:15]  ⁴ sn The next ten verses are devoted to a portrayal of Behemoth (the name means “beast” in Hebrew). It does not fit any of the present material very well, and so many think the section is a later addition. Its style is more like that of a textbook. Moreover, if the animal is a real animal (the usual suggestion is the hippopotamus), then the location of such an animal is Egypt and not Palestine. Some have identified these creatures Behemoth and Leviathan as mythological creatures (Gunkel, Pope). Others point out that these creatures could have been dinosaurs (P. J. Maarten, NIDOTTE, 2:780; H. M. Morris, The Remarkable Record of Job, 115-22). Most would say they are real animals, but probably mythologized by the pagans. So the pagan reader would receive an additional impact from this point about God’s sovereignty over all nature.

[40:15]  ⁵ sn By form the word is the feminine plural of the Hebrew word for “beast.” Here it is an abstract word – a title.

[40:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “with you.” The meaning could be temporal (“when I made you”) – perhaps a reference to the sixth day of creation (Gen 1:24).