13 GOD’S ANSWER AND JOB’S RESPONSE Leviathan is a whale (possibly conflated with dolphins) in Ps 104,26, wb-qxfl trcy-hz !tywl !wklhy twyna ~v. By word-play, this means both “There [in the great sea] ships travel, (and) Leviathan (!tywl), which you created to play with”, and “There ships travel, (and) '" > i their escort (!t'Y"wIl.), which you created to play therein”. Pods of whales and dolphins do indeed “escort” ships. In Psalm 104, Leviathan is one of God’s playful creatures, neither particularly monstrous nor a threat to civilization. In Job’s Theophany, humans cannot defeat him (40,25- 32; perhaps 41,1-6), but who would try? Of course a whale seen up- close can be frightening, by virtue of its size if nothing else, but it rarely imperils humans, except when they stick harpoons in it. Leviathan in Ugaritic and Hebrew mythology was a primordial monster who was among Baal’s, then YHWH’s, enemies. Perhaps Behemoth was originally of the same sort. Nevertheless, the Theo- phany lacks any hint of a creation battle or even of any particular hostility between YHWH and these creatures. They have been con- trolled and naturalized. To the author, they are majestic, powerful creatures, like the warhorse (Job 39,19-25) 46. VII. Questions 47 Rhetorical questions set the tone of the Theophany. If God praised himself in the indicative, he would be merely boasting of powers that Job never denied. If he had said, “I created the earth. I set its mea- surements. I hung it on nothingness. I always command the morning. I show the light and darkness to their places”, and so on, the tone (however justified the claims) would be tediously boastful. Instead, God uses rhetorical questions that elicit knowledge from Job and the reader, thereby making them participants in the depiction 48. The J. LÉVÊQUE, “L’interprétation des discours de YHWH (Job 38,1–42,6)”, 46 The Book of Job (ed. W.A.M. BEUKEN) (Leuven 1994) 203-223, at 213, 216, likewise sees a diminution in the violence and hostility of these creatures. See further FOX, “Job 38”. 47 See also L.J. DE REGT, “Implications of Rhetorical Questions in Strophes 48 in Job 11 and 15”, The Book of Job (ed. W.A.M. BEUKEN) (Leuven 1994) 321. De Regt notes that, “[b]ecause the speaker implies more than the words as such and expects no response, the hearer is impressed by the thought processes that would logically lead to the kind of answer the speaker intends the hearer to reach”. © Gregorian Biblical Press 2012 - Tutti i diritti riservati