What Does Job 40:15 Mean?
Look now at Behemoth, which I made with you; he eats grass like an ox.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.THE KEY
The immense creature belongs to your world: the Maker says it was made “with thee,” and it eats grass like an ox.
THE MEANING
This verse places you beside a creature whose scale and nature exceed ordinary understanding. Behemoth still belongs to the same act of making as you, and its life is sustained by grass. The world you inhabit is shared with creatures that do not exist for your command.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that what is vast or unfamiliar belongs to a separate order from you: the Maker names Behemoth as made “with thee.”
THE ROOT
עָשִׂיתִי
ʿāśîtî
GROWS FROM
עשה
to do, make, or bring about
God says, “I made [Behemoth] with you,” placing the creature within the same making as the reader. This root also forms the Hebrew word for a work or deed, linking this verse to the wider language of creation.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāsāh: To make, do, or accomplish.
עָשָׂה
This is the verb’s root form; it keeps the focus on Behemoth as something made, not something outside the created world.
maʿăśeh: A work or deed; something done.
מַעֲשֶׂה
The branch connects Behemoth with the work of making, the same language used for the creatures in Genesis 1:25.
יֹאכֵל
yōʾkhēl
GROWS FROM
אכל
to eat
“eateth” in this verse is yōʾkhēl. The verse describes Behemoth’s life through an ordinary act of eating. Its extraordinary presence does not remove it from the material rhythm of nourishment: it eats grass as an ox.
ALSO GROWS
ʾākhal: To eat or consume food.
אָכַל
This is the root verb behind “eateth,” grounding Behemoth’s immense presence in the act of taking nourishment.
maʾăkhāl: Food or something eaten.
מַאֲכָל
This branch names what sustains a creature; here, the verse makes grass the ordinary provision for Behemoth.
THE PATTERN
The Creator’s making gathers human and animal life into one world while leaving each creature distinct.
And God made the beast of the earth after its kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing upon the ground after its kind. And God saw that it was good.There the ships go, and this leviathan you shape to laugh in it.For in him all things were created, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, the seen and the unseen, whether seats or lordships or beginnings or authorities; all things have been created through him and toward him.THE THREAD
And God made the beast of the earth after its kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing upon the ground after its kind. And God saw that it was good.Both verses use עשה (ʿāsāh, “make” or “do”) for God’s making of creatures. Genesis names beasts and cattle as good; Job places Behemoth within that same making and says it was made “with thee.”
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