Job 39:3

3 when they crouch down and bring forth their young, when they deliver their fawns?

Job 39:3 Meaning and Commentary

Job 39:3

They bow themselves
That they may bring forth their young with greater ease and more safety: for it seems the hinds bring forth their young with great difficulty; and there are provisions in nature made to lessen it; as thunder, before observed, which causes them to bring forth the sooner; and there is an herb called "seselis", which it is said ^F9 they feed upon before birth, to make it the easier; as well as they use that, and another called "aros", after the birth, to ease them of their later pains;

they bring forth their young ones;
renting and cleaving asunder the membrane, as the word signifies, in which their young is wrapped;

they cast out their sorrows;
either their young, which they bring forth in pains and which then cease; or the secundines, or afterbirth, in which the young is wrapped, and which the philosopher says ^F11 they eat, and is supposed to be medical to them. None but a woman seems to bring forth with more pain than this creature; and a wife is compared to it, ( Proverbs 5:19 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F9 Cicero de Natura Deoram, l. 2. Plin. Nat. Hist. c. 8. 32. Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 9. c. 5.
F11 Aristot. ib.

Job 39:3 In-Context

1 "Do you know when mountain goats give birth? Have you seen deer in labor?

2 Can you tell how many months they carry their young? Do you know when they give birth,

3 when they crouch down and bring forth their young, when they deliver their fawns?

4 Their young become strong, growing up in the open; they leave and never return.

5 "Who lets the wild donkey roam freely? Who sets the wild donkey loose from its shackles?