BEHEMOTH bĭ he’ məth (hippopotamus, בְּהֵמﯴת, H990). This is the most common Heb. word for beast (all Eng. VSS). This pl. form occurs nine times in the OT, and in all passages except one it is tr. “beast” or “beasts.” The exception is in Job 40:15 where the context clearly suggests a specific animal, for which most Eng. VSS give the transliteration “behemoth” but RSVmg. has “hippopotamus.” Some Heb. scholars consider that pl. is used here for intensive effect and many commentators agree with RSVmg. The Heb. scholar and zoologist Bodenheimer differs, regarding it as a general expression here also, and refers to its discussion in Job commentary of Tur. Sinai. The passage is largely fig. and the only points which seem clear are that it is aquatic and powerful (v. 23) and eats grass (v. 15). Also there are ancient records of hunting hippos with harpoons and barbed hooks (Diodorus Siculus 37:35). The hippo was certainly known in Biblical times, esp. in Egypt, where its numbers were greatly reduced by the Romans because of the damage done to crops, but it finally disappeared only in the 12th cent. a.d. It had lived in eastern Mediterranean rivers in the Palaeolithic age, but largely disappeared as the climate became drier and rather cooler, but there is evidence of it in the Orontes River (Syria) around 1500 b.c. Though called hippopotamus (river horse) the hippo is most closely related to the pigs, in the even-toed hoofed animals. Technically, therefore, it divides the hoof, but it does not actually chew the cud; however, it has a complex three-chambered stomach to deal with the masses of poorly digestible plant material which it eats.See Beast.

Bibliography J. A. Wood, Bible Animals (1869), 318-330; F. S. Bodenheimer, Animals and Man in Bible Lands (1960).