Behemoth

the monster is now in conflict either with itself or with an equivalent monster (e.g., Leviathan and Behemoth). This relieves God of his own inner conflict, which now appears outside him in the form of a hostile pair of brother monsters.

Jung argues that the splitting of the primordial monster into Leviathan and Behemoth externalises God's own unresolved inner conflict, projecting divine antinomy onto a pair of antagonistic shadow-creatures.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 1951thesis

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the two prehistoric animals, Leviathan (water) and Behemoth (land), together with their females, form a quaternio of opposites. The coniunctio oppositorum on the animal level, i.e., in the unconscious state, is prevented by God as being dangerous.

Jung identifies Leviathan and Behemoth, with their respective females, as a fourfold structure of opposites whose union God actively prevents, since premature conjunction at the instinctual level would block the evolution of consciousness.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955thesis

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the divine children would not have been imperilled despite the alliance with Behemoth … one after another, the divine children are handed over to Behemoth. They are devoured by savage, barbarian tendencies that were formerly unconscious.

In Psychological Types Jung employs Behemoth as an image of the devouring unconscious instinct that overwhelms the differentiated values of consciousness when rational discrimination is abandoned.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychological Types, 1921thesis

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That God must be as large as Behemoth is one more biblical anthropomorphism.

Hillman challenges the assumption encoded in the Behemoth image that divine enormity must be measured in terms of physical scale, identifying this as a projection of human bias.

Hillman, James, Animal Presences, 2008supporting

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it takes the battle of the fishes as an eschatological event (like the fight between Behemoth and Leviathan), and secondly because it is probably the oldest testimony to the antithetical nature of the fishes.

Jung links the eschatological combat of Behemoth and Leviathan to the astrological antithesis of the Pisces fishes, situating both within a broader pattern of cosmic opposites awaiting final resolution.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 1951supporting

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At the same time 'Behemoth shall be revealed from his place … and then they shall be food for all that are left.'

This footnote in Aion records the Apocalypse of Baruch's eschatological tradition in which Behemoth, like Leviathan, becomes eucharistic food for the righteous at the end of time.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 1951supporting

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behemoth, 66, 104/

The Answer to Job index situates Behemoth at the passages treating Yahweh's animal creation and the sea-monster symbolism, confirming the term's structural role within that text's theodicy argument.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Answer to Job, 1952aside

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Behemoth, 86

Edinger's index to his Answer to Job elucidation records a single substantive reference to Behemoth, locating it within the Book of Enoch material on apocalyptic judgment and divine transformation.

Edinger, Edward F., Transformation of the God-Image: An Elucidation of Jung's Answer to Job, 1992aside

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