Job 40: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD challenges Job to answer him, and Job says he is too small to reply and puts his hand over his mouth. The LORD speaks again from the whirlwind and asks Job whether he will cancel God's justice to prove himself right, and whether he has the arm, the voice, and the power to humble every proud man himself. Then the LORD describes Behemoth, a huge grass-eating creature he made, with its strength, its bones like iron, its resting place among the marsh plants, and its calm before a raging river.

Claim by Claim

1. 40:1
   • The LORD answered Job.
   • The LORD spoke to Job.
2. 40:2
   • God asks whether the one who contends with the Almighty will correct him.
   • God says that the one who rebukes God should answer.
3. 40:3
   • Job answered the LORD.
   • Job spoke.
4. 40:4
   • Job says he is slight and of no account.
   • Job asks what he can answer God.
   • Job says he will put his hand over his mouth.
5. 40:5
   • Job says he has spoken once.
   • Job says he will not answer.
   • Job says he has spoken twice.
   • Job says he will add nothing more.
6. 40:6
   • The LORD answered Job out of the storm.
   • The LORD spoke.
7. 40:7
   • God tells Job to gird up his loins like a man.
   • God says he will question Job.
   • God tells Job to inform him.
8. 40:8
   • God asks whether Job would annul his justice.
   • God asks whether Job would condemn him so that Job may be in the right.
9. 40:9
   • God asks whether Job has an arm like God's.
   • God asks whether Job can thunder with a voice like God's.
10. 40:10
    • God tells Job to adorn himself with majesty and loftiness.
    • God tells Job to clothe himself with splendor and honor.
11. 40:11
    • God tells Job to pour out the overflowings of his anger.
    • God tells Job to look on everyone who is proud.
    • God tells Job to bring the proud man low.
12. 40:12
    • God tells Job to look on everyone who is proud and humble him.
    • God tells Job to tread down the wicked where they stand.
13. 40:13
    • God tells Job to hide them all together in the dust.
    • God tells Job to bind their faces in the hidden place.
14. 40:14
    • God says that then he too would acknowledge to Job that Job's own right hand can save him.
15. 40:15
    • God tells Job to look at Behemoth.
    • God says he made Behemoth along with Job.
    • God says Behemoth eats grass like an ox.
16. 40:16
    • Behemoth's strength is in his loins.
    • Behemoth's power is in the muscles of his belly.
17. 40:17
    • Behemoth makes his tail stiff like a cedar.
    • The sinews of Behemoth's thighs are knit tightly together.
18. 40:18
    • Behemoth's bones are tubes of bronze.
    • Behemoth's limbs are like bars of iron.
19. 40:19
    • Behemoth is the first of God's ways.
    • The one who made Behemoth can bring his sword near him.
20. 40:20
    • The mountains yield food for Behemoth.
    • All the beasts of the field play there.
21. 40:21
    • Behemoth lies under the lotus plants.
    • Behemoth lies in the cover of the reeds and the marsh.
22. 40:22
    • The lotus plants cover Behemoth with their shade.
    • The willows of the streambed surround Behemoth.
23. 40:23
    • Though a river rages, Behemoth is not alarmed.
    • Behemoth is confident even if the Jordan surges against his mouth.
24. 40:24
    • Behemoth is taken by his eyes: the wording leaves ambiguous whether this is a statement or a question implying no one can take him while he watches.
    • Behemoth's nose is pierced with snares: the wording leaves ambiguous whether this is a statement or a question implying no one can pierce it.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

40:1

"The LORD" printed in capitals stands in for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written YHWH. Ancient and later Jewish readers said "Lord" aloud in its place, and English Bibles keep that substitution, using the capitals to show which word is underneath.

40:2

"Contendeth" and "reproveth" are courtroom words. Through the whole book Job has been demanding a hearing, as if summoning God to a trial; God now answers in the same legal vocabulary. The question is whether the man bringing the suit is in a position to instruct the judge.

40:4

"Vile" in 1611 English meant lowly, of no weight or account, not filthy or wicked. The Hebrew word means "I am light," the opposite of weighty or important; Job is calling himself too small to matter in this argument, not confessing a sin. Putting a hand over the mouth was the recognized gesture for deliberately falling silent in the presence of someone greater.

40:5

"Once... twice" is a standard Hebrew way of counting that means "repeatedly, and that is the end of it." Job is not tallying exactly two speeches; he is saying he has had his say and will add nothing.

40:6

The "whirlwind" is a violent storm or tempest. In Hebrew poetry a storm is the usual setting for God appearing and speaking, so naming it signals to the first hearers what kind of encounter this is.

40:7

Men wore long robes; to move fast, work hard or fight, you pulled the hem up between your legs and tucked it into your belt. "Gird up your loins" was the everyday phrase for that, and came to mean "brace yourself, get ready for something demanding."

40:8

"My judgment" is the Hebrew word for justice or the verdict handed down in a case. "Condemn" and "righteous" are also verdict words: to declare a party guilty, or to declare them in the right. The point is that a court can only rule one way, clearing Job would mean convicting God.

40:9

"Arm" is a standard Hebrew image for power in action, the way we might say "muscle." Thunder was regularly described as God's voice, so the two halves of the question ask about the same thing: could Job wield the force God wields?

40:10

Majesty, glory and splendor are spoken of in Hebrew as robes a king puts on. God is telling Job to dress in the regalia of the one who rules, the outfit of the position Job would need to hold to win this argument.

40:11

"Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath" means pour out your anger in every direction; "abase" means bring low. In the Bible a proud person is one who claims a rank or power that is not his, and cutting such people down was thought of as the work of a king or a god rather than an ordinary man.

40:13

"The dust" and "the hidden place" both mean the grave, the realm of the dead. Binding or covering the face was done to a corpse, and also to a man already condemned; the line pictures shutting the proud away permanently among the dead.

40:14

The "right hand" stands for a person's own strength, since most people fight and work right-handed. "Confess" here means concede a point in an argument, not admit a fault.

40:15

"Behemoth" is a Hebrew word left untranslated. It is the ordinary word for cattle or beasts put into a plural form that intensifies rather than counts (something like "the Beast," the animal above all animals. What creature is meant has been argued over for centuries: the description fits a hippopotamus or a water buffalo at some points, and at others sounds larger than any living animal, so many readers take it as a real beast described in deliberately outsized terms. "Which I made with thee" means made alongside Job) the same kind of creature, not the maker.

40:16

"Loins" means the hips and lower back, the strongest part of the body, and "the navel of his belly" means the muscles of the belly wall.

40:17

"Like a cedar" compares the tail to the trunk of a huge tree, stiff and thick, which is why some readers think a different body part is meant. The KJV's "his stones" is its reading of an uncertain Hebrew word for the animal's testicles; most modern translations take the same word as "thighs." The Hebrew genuinely allows both.

40:18

"Brass" in 1611 English meant what we call bronze, the copper alloy used for tools, weapons and temple fittings; the yellow metal we call brass was not in common use. The bones are pictured as hollow metal pipes and solid iron rods, the strongest hard materials the first hearers knew.

40:19

"The chief of the ways of God" means first in rank among the things God has made, a masterpiece, not a ruler. The second half is compressed in Hebrew and can be read two ways: that only Behemoth's maker can bring a sword against him, or that his maker can furnish him with his own "sword," meaning the tusks or teeth he fights with.

40:20

Hebrew poetry pairs the hills with the marsh of the following verses without explaining how one animal uses both; the picture is of a beast so secure that the whole landscape feeds him while the other animals graze and play undisturbed nearby.

40:21

The KJV's "shady trees" translates a Hebrew word for the thorny lotus or jujube, a dense low tree that grows in thickets along the Jordan valley, cover for a large animal rather than ornamental shade.

40:22

Willows are trees that grow beside water. Their long branches hang down like hair.

40:23

The Jordan was the region's best-known river, and naming it works like naming a proverbial flood: even the full force of that river rising to his mouth would not disturb him.

40:24

The Hebrew has no question marker here, so the line can be read either as a flat statement (he takes what he wants in plain sight) or as a challenge (can anyone take him while he watches?); translations divide on it. Captured animals were controlled by driving a ring, hook or cord through the soft flesh of the nose, the ordinary way of leading an ox, and useless against a beast like this.