Let’s pause here and talk for a moment about Behemoth, the creature – monster? – described in this passage from the book of Job. Behemoth eats plants, hangs out in rivers and swamps, and is incredibly, perhaps terrifyingly strong – does that make anyone think of a real animal?…
Yes! Behemoth seems to be sort of a super-hippo, perhaps based on what this author has heard about hippos from travelers to Egypt and beyond.
Who’s seen pictures or videos of Moo Deng?… Moo Deng is the new baby hippo who’s taken the Internet by storm. She’s a baby pygmy hippo, who lives at a zoo in Thailand.
She is small and very cute, and doesn’t really match this Biblical description! But she’s definitely having a moment. There’s all kinds of Moo Deng memes, merch, and fan art on the Internet.
Okay. Why are we talking about hippopotamuses? It’s a very fair question, not just to me but to God, and/or to the author of the Book of Job. For 36 chapters, Job has been crying out to God, demanding an explanation for his suffering, while various “friends” tell him he can’t talk to God like that.
In chapter 38, God finally speaks up…. And then talks for four chapters. Four chapters of nature poetry.
But this isn’t poetry about how a field of daffodils made somebody feel better once. This is about how strange and wild and fierce Nature can be.
God begins with the cosmic – the depths of the sea, the homes of darkness and light, the rules that govern the movements of the stars, the sources of rain and snow.
Then God moves on to some of God’s favorite animals: lions, ravens, mountain goats. Wild donkeys, who wander the wilderness; they scorn the tumult of the city, and don’t have to listen to the shouts of a human trying to get them to cooperate.
Likewise the wild ox, who will not spend the night in your barn or help you plow your fields.
There’s a terrific passage about ostriches and how stupid they are – they lay their eggs on the ground, where they can easily be crushed, and barely take care of their young; and yet when an ostrich runs – it laughs at horse and rider.
After describing Behemoth, we get to Leviathan, some sort of sea-monster or super-crocodile. God is really pleased with Leviathan and spends a whole chapter describing how badass it is.
And that’s it, really. Job says, Okay. I hear you, God. There’s a bigger picture here that I didn’t understand.
Job says, I repent in dust and ashes – a ritual expression of humility. He has dropped his charges against God.
God goes on to tell Job’s friends that God is angry with them because they have not spoken rightly about God, as Job did! As puzzling and unsatisfactory as God’s response to Job may feel, at least we see Job’s rage prayers ratified, as God smacks down the friends’ smug assurance about what God is like.
I love the fierce nature poetry of God’s answer to Job. But in what sense does God answer Job’s anger and anguish?
Bible scholar Robert Alter writes: “Through that long chain of vividly arresting images… Job has been led to see the multifarious character of God’s vast creation, its unfathomable fusion of beauty and cruelty, and through this he has come to understand the incommensurability between his human notions of right and wrong and the structure of reality.” (577) God’s answer, then, invites Job into appreciation of the bigger picture beyond his personal pain.
On the other hand, Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggeman writes, “After Job relates in great detail his anguish and pain and bewilderment, [God] responds, ‘Let me tell you about my crocodile.’ Any pastoral supervisor evaluating this act of ministry would say to [God], ‘You couldn’t stand the pain and you changed the subject.’” That’s fair.
And yet. And yet.
We do seek out mountains and beaches and stars.
We do revel in the glory of a thunderstorm.
We travel to volcanoes and glaciers.
We’re drawn to the power and danger of apex predators.
My social media has been overwhelmed lately with people’s photos of the Northern Lights. Now, maybe 50% of that is the thrill of taking a cool photo and posting it online. But standing at the edge of a field in rural Wisconsin, looking up at the night sky, and knowing that the faint shimmering green you’re seeing is because there’s a storm on the Sun… can create a certain exhilarating sense of smallness.
Old Testament scholar Ellen Davis points out that the natural phenomena God describes in Job are not useful to, and often not even friendly towards, humans. God describes a world, a universe, in which we – humanity – are neither center nor pinnacle. God loves the wild, the fierce, the mysterious.
And – so do we, often.
This remains true even in the deep shadow of the devastating impacts of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. As with every such event, it’s wise to consider the degree to which a natural disaster is also a human disaster: the product not only of natural systems intensified by climate change, but of poor planning and regulation, the failure of warning systems, political roadblocks to effective climate adaptation and adequate funding for relief work.
There are no easy explanations for suffering, but part of the answer, surely, is that we choose poorly, individually and together.
But even in the face of such loss, humans continue to find a strange consolation in the power and danger of creation.
People will return and rebuild because they love the wooded wilds of the Blue Ridge mountains, and the moody glory of the ocean visible from vulnerable oceanfront homes in Florida.
The thing about Moo Deng is that people don’t love her because she’s cute and cuddly.
People love her because she’s filled with rage.
She’s constantly trying to bite her keeper on the leg, or chase him around the enclosure.
And it’s adorable, but also: Me too, Moo Deng. Me too.
God’s answer to Job does not explain or resolve Job’s pain, anger, and desolation.
Go look at the stars, or Let’s talk about crocodiles, is not a good response to deep suffering.
But it’s not the worst response, either? …
There is an impulse here that we recognize.
It’s something that sometimes helps, a little – turning our eyes and minds and hearts towards creatures and landscapes and cycles that are living their own vivid lives and care not at all about the things that overwhelm us.
And there’s an invitation here, I think – embedded in the rich poetic tapestry of this text – to venture beyond the familiar and fallible moral frameworks of virtue and reward, into a sense of a sense of self and world and God that is stranger and riskier, less reassuring, more capacious and paradoxical.
Into the wild, fierce faith of Job.