SECTION IV. 

 DUBIOUS ANIMALS 



THE BEHEMOTH 



THE animal denoted by this appellation in the book of Job, has 

 been variously determined by learned men ; some of whom, espe- 

 cially the early Christian writers and the Jewish rabbins, have in- 

 dulged in sufficiently extravagant notions. To detail these would 

 3be useless, and we shall therefore pass them over in silence. 



The late editor of Cal met, whose extensive learning and indefati- 

 gable industry will always entitle him to respectful attention, not- 

 withstanding his love of fanciful conjecture, has well remarked, that 

 'the author of the book of Job has" evidently taken great pains in 

 delineating highly finished and poetical pictures of two remarkable 

 animals, BEHEMOTH and LEVIATHAN: these he reserves to close his 

 descriptions of animated nature, and with these he terminates the 

 climax of that discourse, which he puts into the mouth of the AL- 

 MIGHTY. He even interrupts that discourse, and separates, as it 

 were, by that interruption, these surprising creatures from those 

 which he had described before; and he descants on them in a man- 

 ner which demonstrates the poetic animation with which he wrote. 

 The leviathan is described at a still greater length than the behe- 



