From Societal Scorn to Divine Delight: Job’s Transformative Portrayal of Wild Animals

In the book of Job, when God finally answers after thirty-five chapters of theological discussions between Job and his friends, God’s climactic response to Job shines a surprising spotlight on wild animals. Almost half of the first divine speech focuses on wild animals (Job 38:39–39:30). The second divine speech centers on Behemoth and Leviathan, mythic creatures resembling, respectively, the hippopotamus and crocodile or whale (Job 40:15–41:34). By depicting the Deity’s delight in and care for some of the most feared and disparaged animals in the Bible and in the ancient Near Eastern world, God’s whirlwind revelation revolutionizes Job’s perception of these animals, himself, and God.

In light of references to these animals in ancient Near Eastern motifs, the Torah’s priestly texts, and the book of Job, this article interprets the stereotype-subverting zoological section of the first divine speech and explores its profound ecological and theological implications. As part of what environmentalist Bill McKibben identifies as “the first great piece of modern nature writing,”¹ Job 38:39–39:30 assaults anthropocentrism, reveals the Creator’s care, and elicits awe of animals.

YHWH’s portrayal of wild animals challenges typical ancient Near Eastern animal motifs. Almost all of the animals in the divine speeches appear in ancient Near Eastern iconography of royal hunts. By hunting these wild animals, Mesopotamian and Egyptian kings symbolically demonstrated their power to defend the land from threatening forces.² Assyrian kings especially celebrated their conquests of lions, including Ashurnasirpal II commissioning reliefs of his lion hunts and Tiglath-pileser I boasting of killing 920 lions at “the command of the god Ninurta.”³

YHWH’s opening words about animals initially resemble but ultimately reverse the royal hunt motif. Job 38:39 begins with the question, “Can you hunt?” and focuses on the lion. Yet, YHWH asks Job if he can hunt not the lion but, rather, the prey to feed the lion. In a surprising twist, Job 38:39 transforms the hunt’s purpose from slaughtering to sustaining the lion.

Subsequent stanzas satirize the royal hunt. The most repeated sound in Job 39 is that of animals laughing with scorn at the commotion and violence of humankind. The onager (Asiatic wild ass) laughs at the tumult of the city (39:7); the ostrich laughs at the horse and rider (39:18); and both the horse and, later, Leviathan laugh fearlessly when confronted with human weapons (39:22; 41:29). Job 39 ridicules the royal hunt by depicting wild animals laughing at humans’ attempts to hunt, dominate, or domesticate them. Instead of an assault on animals, the divine speeches assault anthropocentrism—a human-centered perspective—by portraying humans as the laughingstock rather than the crown of creation.

The divine speeches depict wild animals as kings of their own domains rather than game hunted by kings. While wild animals from the royal hunt motif appear throughout the zoological section of the divine speeches, a human king never does. The final verse of the divine speeches crowns Leviathan as king (41:34). In Job 41 God stresses the impossibility of hunting this wondrous king, an atypical king that does not hunt animals.

The final chapter of the divine speeches challenges the violence against nature underlying ancient Near Eastern conflict myths by depicting Leviathan as the object not of divine destruction but of divine delight. The Joban theophany’s portrait of God celebrating, cherishing, and providing for the very animals that were hunted by kings and slaughtered by deities in ancient Near Eastern iconography and texts revolutionizes conceptions of God’s relationship with animals.

In addition to the royal hunt, many of the animals featured in Job 38:39–39:30 also appear in the “Lord of the animals” motif in ancient Near Eastern iconography. This motif depicts divine and royal figures holding wild animals, which represents their ability to subdue chaotic forces.⁴ Conversely, Job 39 describes the Deity’s delight in the freedom and wildness of these animals. YHWH loosens the onager’s bonds (39:5) and emphasizes the futility of humans’ attempts to control the aurochs (wild oxen) (39:9–12). The questions in Job 39:5–12 imply that God frees rather than fetters wild animals.

The divine speeches undermine the anthropocentric assumptions of the “Lord of the animals” and royal hunt motifs by portraying wild animals whose purpose is not to be restrained or hunted by kings but rather to give birth, feed their offspring, soar with insight, run fearlessly, laugh, and live in freedom. Despite depicting many of the same wild animals, Job 38:39–39:30 and these ancient Near Eastern iconographic motifs dramatically differ in their portrayal of the interrelationships between God, humans, and animals.

Animals play pivotal roles throughout the book of Job, but the narrator, friends, and Job himself refer to animals for very different reasons than does YHWH. I will contrast how the Joban theophany and the rest of the book portray specific animals, beginning with the prose tale and followed by references to the lion and wild ass, the two animals that appear in the speeches of Job, his friends, and God.

In the prose tale (1:1–2:13; 42:7–17), animals exemplify the abundance and loss of Job’s wealth as well as the means to and outcome of his restoration. The book’s third verse lists Job’s 11,000 domesticated animals as proof of his prosperity and piety. When tragedy befalls Job, the first three messengers each announce the theft or death of Job’s animals before mentioning the death of his servants (1:14–17). Similarly, the epilogue depicts the blessings of Job’s latter days by referring to Job’s 22,000 animals before mention of his ten children (41:12–13). Burnt offerings propel the prose tale’s plot, including the friends offering seven bulls and seven rams prior to Job’s restoration (1:5; 42:8). Yet, none of the sheep, camels, oxen, donkeys, bulls, or rams that populate the prose tale appear in YHWH’s whirlwind revelation (chs. 38–41). In contrast to the prose tale, almost all of the animals roaming and soaring in the divine speeches are wild and either unclean or abominable. The Joban theophany portrays these animals not as possessions but as parents, not as offerings for children’s potential sins but as hungry children in their own right.

The lion is the first animal referred to by the friends and God. While Eliphaz associates the lion with divine violence, God associates the lion with divine nourishment. Eliphaz compares the wicked to a lion attacked by God and perishing “for lack of prey” (4:8–11), but the divine speeches imply that God provides the lion with prey (38:39). While Job laments that God hunts him like a lion (10:16), God depicts young lions not as hunting or hunted but as fed by God (38:39). Lion imagery functions in Eliphaz’s speech to illustrate divine retribution; in Job’s speech, it illustrates divine persecution; in God’s speech, it illustrates divine provision.

The themes of persecution versus provision resurface in Job’s and God’s depictions of the wild ass. Job likely compares his laments when wounded by the Almighty’s arrows to the bray of the wild ass when it is hungry (6:4–5). Since Zophar also may refer to Job as a wild ass (11:12),¹⁹ the divine speeches transform perceptions of God’s relationship not only with the wild ass but also with Job when depicting God liberating and providing for the wild ass rather than attacking it. YHWH’s depiction of the wild ass shares themes of food and habitat with Job’s comparison of the persecuted poor to wild asses in the desert searching for food and struggling to survive with no shelter (24:4–8).

In Job 39:6, the divine voice proclaims about the onager, “I have given the steppe for its home, the salt land for its” tabernacle (miškān). This is the only passage in the zoological section of the divine speeches where YHWH speaks in the first person. This is also the only passage in the Hebrew Bible where miškān, the term for the divine dwelling place, refers to the dwelling place of an animal. Reversing Job’s depiction of the wild ass and poor lacking shelter (24:8), the divine voice unequivocally claims responsibility for providing a tabernacle for the onager. YHWH applies a term most often reserved for sacred space to the salt land, a habitat that other biblical texts associate with wickedness, punishment, and desolation (Ps 107:34; Jer 17:6). The liberated Israelites journeyed with the tabernacle through the wilderness, and the divine speeches depict the salt land as a tabernacle that God provides another liberated creature, the onager (Job 39:5–6).

The very animals that Job refers to as symbols of his desolation and of God’s maltreatment of him reemerge in a new light in the divine speeches, revealing God’s care for these animals and also, implicitly, for Job. God provides for these animals, transforms negative stereotypes about them, and revels in their unique characteristics. Job associates the lion and wild ass with divine assault, but God associates them with divine provision. Job associates the wild ass and ostrich with lamentation, but God associates them with laughter. Job and his friends deploy animal imagery “to score points in the debate over Job’s moral status” and over God’s treatment of Job,²⁰ but God’s detailed description of each awe-inspiring animal transcends retributive rhetoric. The Joban theophany reveals the Creator’s compassion for and divine delight in these fearless, joyous, free, diverse, insightful, and magnificent animals.

The zoological section of the Joban theophany provides vital ecological and theological resources for Earth’s current ecological crisis. The three steps of ecological interpretation of the Bible articulated by Norman Habel—suspicion, identification, and retrieval—shed light on this text’s often overlooked but profound ecological implications.²¹ YHWH models each of these steps in this whirlwind revelation to Job.

The first step—reading biblical texts and interpretations with the suspicion that they may be anthropocentric—most needs to be applied not to this zoocentric text but to the abundant anthropocentric interpretations of it.²² While this text emphasizes animals, many interpretations of it neglect animals in the search for an underlying theological message to Job. An ecological interpretation takes seriously YHWH’s focus on fauna as the message itself and as a divine call to care deeply about these animals.²³ YHWH’s questions about animals broaden Job’s and our perspectives beyond ourselves to consider our provision for, knowledge of, interrelatedness with, and impact on fauna. These questions invite us to learn from, revel in, and advocate for these species. The voice out of the whirlwind and the laughter of animals exemplify an ecological hermeneutic of suspicion by interrogating and satirizing the anthropocentrism so prevalent in most other biblical and ancient Near Eastern traditions and texts. Humans’ bloated claims of dominion are a punch line to the animals whose scornful laughter in the face of human violence and oppression reverberates throughout Job 39.

YHWH also models the second step of ecological interpretation—identifying and empathizing with the earth.²⁴ God exemplifies and elicits empathy for animals by depicting lions and ravens not as ferocious predators or detestable birds but as hungry children crying to God (38:39–41). Theophanic imagery abounds in the divine descriptions of the horse and Leviathan, establishing an intimate identification between YHWH and these awe-inspiring images of God (Job 39:19–20; 41:18–21). YHWH also identifies with the onager by describing its habitat with the term for the divine dwelling place (39:6). These resemblances between animals and God inspire greater respect, awe, and care for these animals and their habitats. God’s identification with these animals invites us to recognize our own inextricable interconnection with these animals and all of creation.

YHWH exemplifies the final step of ecological criticism by retrieving the voices of the raven’s young as they cry to God, of the horse as it snorts with theophanic splendor, and of the onager, ostrich, horse, and Leviathan as they laugh with scorn at human violence (Job 38:41; 39:7, 18–22; 41:29). Tragically, some of the very animals that the Joban theophany depicts as scorning humans’ attempts to exploit or hunt them—the Syrian wild ass, Syrian ostrich, and aurochs—are now extinct.²⁵ An ecological interpretation of Job 38:39–39:30 retrieves the voices of these extinct animals as outcries against human activities that threaten the endangerment and extinction of God’s beloved animals. The symphony of sounds from wild animals in the Joban theophany contrasts with the silence of these animals in biblical texts that evict these animals from their natural habitats (Lev 26:6; Isa 35:9). While other biblical texts tame, remove, demonize, or ignore wild animals, the divine speeches amplify the voices of wild animals and uniquely celebrate them precisely for their wildness.

The divine speeches portray the Creator as the ultimate environmentalist. They reveal a God who prioritizes, celebrates, and cares deeply about the offspring, food, habitats, freedom, and laughter of wild animals. If we are to image the God revealed in the whirlwind, our actions should be motivated by how we are leaving the planet for the offspring of lions, ravens, ibex, ostriches, and vultures (38:39–39:4, 13–16, 30). By focusing on animals in response to the theological issues raised by Job and his friends, the divine speeches indicate the vital importance of ecology to theology and to the Creator. By raising questions about when ibex and deer give birth (39:1), the divine speeches urge us to care enough about these species that we know the answers.²⁶ By depicting God’s delight in and care for birds that Leviticus labels an abomination, the divine speeches inspire our awe of and advocacy for all animals. By satirizing the royal hunt, the divine speeches critique an ancient threat to animals and challenge us to act today to reduce current threats to animals, including climate-altering emissions, overhunting, pollution, poaching, and habitat loss and fragmentation. By shifting the focus from whether an animal is permitted to be eaten (Leviticus 11) to whether an animal has food to eat (Job 38:39–41; 39:8, 29–30), the Joban theophany prioritizes animal welfare over human consumption.

YHWH undermines the anthropocentrism of Job, his friends, and most biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts, revealing a world that centers on wild animals rather than humans. The divine speeches transform Job’s perception of denigrated animals by enabling him to see them from a God’s-eye view. Job glimpses the magnificent diversity and dignity of these animals as well as God’s wonder at and compassion for them.²⁷ Even birds labeled an abomination in Leviticus 11 are depicted in the divine speeches as endowed with wisdom by God (39:26), soaring and nesting in obedience to God’s command (39:27), crying to God, and provided with food by God (38:41). Whereas Job may compare himself to the lion, wild ass, and Leviathan being attacked by God (6:4–5; 7:12; 10:16), the divine speeches reveal God’s care for these very creatures and, thereby, also for Job (38:8–9, 39; 39:5–6; 41). The Joban theophany moves Job from isolation to interconnectedness, from self-absorption to cosmic awe, and from perceiving God as his personal persecutor to witnessing the Creator’s expansive embrace. This whirlwind revelation revolves not around retributive rhetoric but around the irrepressible freedom, fearless laughter, and resilience of interdependent animals, like Job, that society scorns but the Creator cherishes.

The Joban theophany encourages humanity to treat the most stigmatized and marginalized animals, ecosystems, and people with compassion and reverence. It embraces those on the peripheries as central to God and those designated detestable as delightful to God. It revels in and provides for those labeled unclean or an abomination. Rather than separating humans as superior, it weaves us into the sublime tapestry of life. The divine speeches reveal all of creation as embraced by and vital to the Creator. The voice out of the whirlwind calls us to live into this vision of Earth as a tabernacle where there are no ecosystems beyond God’s presence, no species deprived of divine provision, and no animals excluded from the Creator’s compassionate care.

Portions of this article are based on my dissertation and SBL paper: Barry R. Huff, “Dipped in Filth and Clothed in Glory: Job’s Transformation of Priestly Terms, Themes, Texts, and Theologies” (PhD diss., Union Presbyterian Seminary, 2017), 172–81, 208–10, 238–70, ProQuest; Barry R. Huff, “Revering Sacred Earth: Ecological Implications of Tabernacle Terms in Job 38–41” (paper presented to the Ecological Hermeneutics Section at the Annual Meeting of the SBL, Boston, 19 November 2017), 1–3, 6–12. I appreciate helpful comments on this article from Samuel Balentine, Ann Torbert, and zoologists Gary Grossman and Karen Eckert.