What is the significance of comparing Behemoth's bones to "tubes of bronze" in Job 40:18? Passage in Focus “His bones are tubes of bronze; his limbs are rods of iron.” (Job 40:18) Immediate Literary Context Job 40:15-24 forms Yahweh’s first example of raw, unanswerable power in creation. Behemoth is introduced right after the Lord confronts Job (40:1-14). By spotlighting this single creature’s unmatched strength, God demonstrates that the very fabric of nature is under His effortless governance—thereby answering Job’s questions about divine justice without a single legal argument. Bronze in the Ancient Near East Archaeological layers at Hazor, Megiddo, and Timna’s copper mines show widespread bronze metallurgy from at least the 3rd millennium BC (Broshi, “Timna and its Copper,” Biblical Archaeologist 47:1984). Bronze weapons and temple fittings (e.g., the Tabernacle altar, Exodus 38:1-7) symbolized durability, judgment, and covenant permanence. For a shepherd culture that routinely snapped sheep bones by hand, likening a creature’s bones to bronze instantly communicated a super-natural order of strength. Structural Engineering Analogy—“Tubes” Hollow tubes distribute stress along a circumference, conferring maximal strength-to-weight ratio—identical to modern aircraft wings or titanium bike frames (Gordon, “Structures,” MIT Press, 1978). The inspired writer is not grasping at poetic fluff; he is intuitively describing load-bearing engineering that twentieth-century aerospace would later formalize. That precise imagery anticipates design principles that point to an intelligent Designer (cf. Meyer, Signature in the Cell, ch. 14). Candidate Creatures 1. Hippopotamus—traditional in Jewish Midrash and many study Bibles, yet hippo limb bones are solid pillars, not hollow “tubes,” and the tail is a mere flap (v. 17 counters that picture). 2. Elephant—larger tail but same issue: dense, columnar bones. 3. Sauropod Dinosaur—apatosaur‐type vertebrates possess pneumatized (air-filled) limb bones functioning exactly like “tubes.” CT scans of Diplodocus femora (Wedel, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 23:2003) document up to 80 % internal void volume while carrying fifty-ton loads. Job, living centuries after the Flood on a young earth (~2000 BC), could plausibly have encountered such post-Flood megafauna before their extinction (Ham, The Genesis Flood, pp. 254-258). Ancient Commentators • Septuagint translators kept the term Behemoth untranslated, signaling a real but unfamiliar animal. • Targum Jonathan glosses “a beast of the wilderness,” avoiding hippo or elephant identification. • Church Fathers (Origen, Augustine) spiritualized Behemoth as the devil, yet still recognized the literal wording describes extraordinary physical might. Theological Message Yahweh moves from cosmology (chs. 38-39) to zoology (chs. 40-41) to show that sovereignty permeates every scale of creation. Bronze-boned Behemoth personifies Genesis 1:31—creation judged “very good,” yet vastly beyond human control. The comparison crushes anthropocentric pride and draws Job toward repentance (42:5-6). Devotional and Behavioral Application Psychologically, the metaphor resets cognitive biases: humans overestimate their autonomy until confronted with a power differential they cannot tame (Romans 9:20). True wisdom begins with surrender to the Creator whose “everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27) encircle even Behemoth. Salvation is found not by matching that strength, but by trusting Christ’s resurrection-validated promise (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) to shelter those who believe. Summary Calling Behemoth’s bones “tubes of bronze” highlights incomparable, intelligently engineered strength, buttresses the historicity of Job, aligns with young-earth evidence for dinosaur-era humans, and serves God’s purpose of humbling His image-bearers so they might seek redemption in the risen Messiah. |
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