Job 39:1

1 "Do you know when ¹the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe ²the calving of the does?

Job 39:1 Meaning and Commentary

Job 39:1

Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring
forth?
&c.] Which creatures are so called, because they dwell among the rocks ^F4 and run upon them; and though their heads are loaded with a vast burden of horns upon them, yet can so poise themselves, as with the greatest swiftness, to leap from mountain to mountain, as Pliny says ^F5: and if they bring forth their young in the rocks, as Olympiodorus asserts, and which is not improbable, it is not to be wondered, that the time of their bringing forth should not be known by men, to whom the rocks they run upon are inaccessible;

[or] canst thou mark the time when the hinds do calve?
that is, precisely and exactly, and so as to direct, order, and manage, and bring it about, as the Lord does: and it is wonderful that they should calve, and not cast their young before their time, when they are continually in flight and fright, through men or wild beasts, and are almost always running and leaping about; and often scared with thunder, which hastens birth, ( Psalms 29:9 ) ; otherwise the time of their bringing forth in general is known by men, as will be observed in ( Job 39:2 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F4 "----Amantis saxa capellae". Ovid. Epist. 15. v. 55.
F5 Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 53. Aelian. de Animal. l. 14. c. 16.

Job 39:1 In-Context

1 "Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does?

2 Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth,

3 when they crouch, bring forth their offspring, and are delivered of their young?

4 Their young ones become strong; they grow up in the open; they go out and do not return to them.

5 "Who has let the wild donkey go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey,

Cross References

• 1. 1 Samuel 24:2; Psalms 104:18
• 2. Psalms 29:9