Job 39:18

18 In her season she will lift herself on high; she will scorn the horse and his rider.

Job 39:18 Meaning and Commentary

Job 39:18

What time she lifted up herself on high
It is sometimes eight foot high F12; when alarmed with approaching danger she raises up herself, being sitting on the ground, and erects her wings for flight, or rather running;

she scorneth the horse and his rider;
being then, as Pliny F13 says, higher than a man on horseback, and superior to a horse in swiftness; and though horsemen have been able to take wild asses and goats, very swift creatures, yet never ostriches, as Xenophon relates F14 of those in Arabia; and this creature has another method, when pursued, by which it defies and despises, as well as hurts and incommodes its pursuers, which is by casting stones backward at them with its feet as out of a sling F15.


FOOTNOTES:

F12 Philosoph. Transact. abridged, vol. 2. p. 360.
F13 Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 10. c. 1.
F14 De Expedit. Cyri, l. 1.
F15 Plin. ut supra. (Nat. Hist. l. 10. c. 1.) Aelian. de Animal. l. 4. c. 37.

Job 39:18 In-Context

16 She has hardened against her young ones, as though not herself: she labours in vain without fear.
17 For God has withholden wisdom from her, and not given her a portion in understanding.
18 In her season she will lift herself on high; she will scorn the horse and his rider.
19 Hast thou invested the horse with strength, and clothed his neck with terror?
20 And hast thou clad him in perfect armour, and made his breast glorious with courage?

The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.