Job 39:18

18 Quand elle se lève et prend sa course, Elle se rit du cheval et de son cavalier.

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 Elle est dure envers ses petits comme s'ils n'étaient point à elle; Elle ne s'inquiète pas de l'inutilité de son enfantement.

17 Car Dieu lui a refusé la sagesse, Il ne lui a pas donné l'intelligence en partage.

18 Quand elle se lève et prend sa course, Elle se rit du cheval et de son cavalier.

19 Est-ce toi qui donnes la vigueur au cheval, Et qui revêts son cou d'une crinière flottante?

20 Le fais-tu bondir comme la sauterelle? Son fier hennissement répand la terreur.