"Behemoth is a biblical creature mentioned in the Book of Job, 40:15-24. The word is most likely a plural form of behemah, meaning beast or large animal. It may be an example of pluralis excellentiae, a Hebrew method of expressing greatness by pluralizing a noun; it thus indicates that Behemoth is the largest and most powerful animal ever to exist. Metaphorically, the name has come to be used for any extremely large or powerful entity."

- Wikipedia


"15 Behold now the behemoth that I have made with you; he eats grass like cattle.
16 Behold now his strength is in his loins and his power is in the navel of his belly.
17 His tail hardens like a cedar; the sinews of his tendons are knit together.
18 His limbs are as strong as copper, his bones as a load of iron.
19 His is the first of God's ways; [only] his Maker can draw His sword [against him].
20 For the mountains bear food for him, and all the beasts of the field play there.
21 Does he lie under the shadows, in the covert of the reeds and the swamp?
22 Do the shadows cover him as his shadow? Do the willows of the brook surround him?
23 Behold, he plunders the river, and [he] does not harden; he trusts that he will draw the Jordan into his mouth.
24 With His eyes He will take him; with snares He will puncture his nostrils."

- Book of Job, 40:15-24




"Then you kept in existence two living creatures; the name of one you called Behemoth and the name of the other Leviathan. And you separated one from the other, for the seventh part where the water had been gathered together could not hold them both. And you gave Behemoth one of the parts which had been dried up on the third day, to live in it, where there are a thousand mountains; but to Leviathan you have the seventh part, the watery part; and you have kept them to be eaten by whom you wish, and when you wish"

- 4Edras 6:49-52









"Each in their kind. The Earth obeyed, and straight
Opening her fertile womb teemed at a birth
Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
Limbed and full grown: Out of the ground up rose,
As from his lair, the wild beast where he wons
In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den;
Among the trees in pairs they rose, they walked:
The cattle in the fields and meadows green:
Those rare and solitary, these in flocks
Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung.
The grassy clods now calved; now half appeared
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,
And rampant shakes his brinded mane; the ounce,
The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole
Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw
In hillocks: The swift stag from under ground
Bore up his branching head: Scarce from his mould
Behemoth biggest born of earth upheaved
His vastness: Fleeced the flocks and bleating rose,
As plants: Ambiguous between sea and land
The river-horse, and scaly crocodile."

- Paradise Lost - Book VII 453-474







"XVI. Behemoth, heavy and stupid demon, in spite of his stateliness. His strength is in his loins; his domains are gluttony and the pleasures of the belly. Several devil worshipers say that in hell he is butler and high cupbearer. Bodin believes that Behemoth is none other than the Egyptian Pharoah who persecuted the Hebrews. Behemoth is spoken of in Job as a monsterous creature. Some commentators say that he is a whale, and others that he is an elephant; but there have been other monstrous species which have disappeared. One sees in the works of Urbain Grandier that Behemoth is surely a demon. Delancre says that one sees his as a monstrous animal, because he gives himself the form of all the grossest beasts. He swears that Behemoth can also disguise himself to perfection as a dog, an elephant, a fox, or a wolf.
If Wierus, our oracle on all that concerns demons, does not admit Behemoth to his inventory of the infernal monarchy, he says, in his first book, des Prestiges des demons, ch. XXI, that Behemoth or the elephant could well be Satan himself, of whom one also grants vast power.



Finally, because one reads, in Ch. 40 of Job, that Behemoth eats as much hay as a beef, the rabbis will make of him a marvelous roast reserved for the festival of their Messiah. This beef is so enormous, they say, that he gobbles up every day the hay of a thousand huge mountains, which he has grazed since the beginning of the world. He never leaves his thousand mountains, or the grass that he had eaten that day would push back the night into the next day. They swear that God killed the female of the species in the beginning; since one could not let such a race multiply. The Jews promise well of the joy at the festival where he will be the piece de resistance. They swear on their side by the flesh of Behemoth."

- Dictionnaire Infernal by Collin de Plancy (1863)











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