Job 39:2

2 Can you count the months they are pregnant or know the time when they'll give birth?

Job 39:2 Meaning and Commentary

Job 39:2

Canst thou number the months [that] they fulfil?
&c.] Which some understand both of wild goats and hinds. Common goats fulfil five months, they conceive in November, and bring forth in March, as Pliny

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FOOTNOTES:

F6 observes; but how many the wild goats of the rock fulfil is not said by him or any other I know of: the same writer says ^F7 of hinds, that they go eight months;

or knowest thou the time when they bring forth?
naturalists ^F8 tell us, that the hinds conceive after the rise of the star Arcturus, which rises eleven days before the autumnal equinox; so that they conceive in September; and as they go eight months, they bring forth in April; but then the exact time to a day and hour is not known. Besides, who has fixed the time for their bringing forth, and carries them in it through so many dangers and difficulties? None but the Lord himself. Now if such common things in nature were not known perfectly by Job, how should he be able to search into and find out the causes and reasons of God's providential dealings with men, or what is in the womb of Providence?

F6 Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 50.
F7 Ib. c. 32.
F8 Ib. & l. 2. c. 47. Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 6. c. 29. Solinus, c. 31.

Job 39:2 In-Context

1 "Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch the does when they are in labor?

2 Can you count the months they are pregnant or know the time when they'll give birth?

3 They kneel down to give birth and deliver their young. Then the pain of giving birth is over.

4 Their young are healthy and grow up in the wild. They leave and don't come back.

5 "Who lets the wild donkey go free? Who unties the ropes of the wild donkey?