Behemoth is the great primordial land-beast of Hebrew tradition — the colossal counterpart of the sea-dragon [leviathan], an unstoppable monster of the dry earth whose strength is in his loins and whose power is beyond any creature’s mastery save God’s. He embodies the untamable might of the land as Leviathan embodies that of the sea.
Chief of the Works of God
Behemoth makes his great appearance in the Book of Job, where God points to him as a marvel of creation to humble the proud. “Behold now Behemoth, which I made along with you; he eats grass like an ox. His strength is in his loins, and his force is in the muscles of his belly. He moves his tail like a cedar... his bones are like tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. He is the first of the works of God.” He lies beneath the lotus plants, in the covert of the reeds and marsh; though the river rage, he is not alarmed; only his Maker can approach him with the sword.
The Beast of a Thousand Mountains
The rabbinic imagination magnified Behemoth into a creature of staggering scale: a beast so vast that he grazes upon a thousand mountains each day, and the produce of all those hills is barely his daily food. He is the king of all the land animals as Leviathan is king of the sea-creatures and [ziz] of the birds — the three great monarchs of the realms of creation. Like Leviathan, Behemoth was created as a pair, but God prevented these unmatchable beasts from multiplying lest they overwhelm the world.
The Final Combat
Behemoth shares Leviathan’s appointed destiny at the end of days. In the messianic age, tradition holds, Behemoth and Leviathan will be set against one another in a final, titanic combat — the land-monster and the sea-monster locked in battle until both are slain. Their flesh will then be served as the great feast of the righteous, the banquet of the redeemed at the end of time. In Behemoth, Hebrew tradition gave the land its monster-king — a creature of iron sinew and bronze bone, mightiest of the beasts of the earth, whom God made first and whom God alone can tame.