262 MICHAEL V. FOX to a cedar (40,17) 4. Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, both of whom visited Egypt, made the same error 5. Also contrary to the reality of the hippopota- mus is the notion that the produce of the mountains comes to it, if that is what 40,20 means. However, the mountains have no relevance to the hip- popotamus and certainly have no “produce” in Egypt. We should probably emend ooo~yrh lwb to ~yrhn lwby; hence: “For the rivers bring him produce, and all the animals of the field play there”. In other words, the hippopotamus has been so well provided for that he need not go far for food. He just opens his mouth and the rivers (so it appears) bring it to him. (The plural refers to the branches of the Nile). Hippopotami actually come up to forage, mostly at night. But during the daytime, too, they can be seen grazing in swampy ground near the river. Mistaken notions about the hippopotamus may have come from a traveler, who would not, after all, get too close. For the Egyptians, the hippopotamus was an embodiment of Seth, who represented chaos and hostility and was ritually defeated by Pharaoh, the Living Horus 6. There is no evidence that this myth was known in Israel, but it too could have been brought by a traveler. This mythic background would explain Behemoth’s pairing with Leviathan. If so, what is more significant than Behemoth’s mythic origins is the way that they have been bleached out of the picture in the Theophany. All Behemoth does here is stand in the river and graze imperturbably 7. Hippopotami are actually quite dangerous, especially when they come to feed. Still, hippopotami spend most of the day in the river among the reeds with little movement and may seem placid to a passer-by. They rarely attack without provocation. The one portrayed in Job does not fight at all, though he is so powerful that “his maker” ― alone ― can “bring his sword near” (40,19b) 8. Behemoth’s tail is not actually said to be long. Rather, Behemoth is said 4 to do something to his tail ― #px, an obscure verb ― like a cedar (as noted by KEEL, Jahwes Entgegnung, 131). Some suggest that “tail” is a euphemism for penis; see M.H. POPE, Job. Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB; New York 1965) 325, and N. HABEL, The Book of Job (OTL; Philadelphia, PA 1985) 566. But the evidence for this is slight. Herodotus, History 2.71; Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, VIII 95. 5 Behemoth is identified as Seth by E. RUPRECHT, “Das Nilpferd im Hiob- 6 buch”, VT 21 (1971) 209-231. KEEL, Jahwes Entgegnung, 127-141, observes that both the hippopotamus and the crocodile embody Seth and thus represent evil or evildoers. Less likely is John Day’s identification of Behemoth as Arš, “El’s calf”, 7 known from KTU 1.6 VI. There is no evidence for this identification, nor can we say that this creature conforms to Job 40,15-24 better than the hippopota- mus does, since we have no idea what Arš looked like or how it spent its time. We should redivide wX[h la as wX[ hla (“ … of God. His maker may 8 near bring his sword”), to eliminate the ungrammatical article of wOof[oh'. © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati