Job 39

1 "Do you know the month when mountain goats give birth? Have you ever watched a doe bear her fawn?

2 Do you know how many months she is pregnant? Do you know the season of her delivery,

3 when she crouches down and drops her offspring?

4 Her young ones flourish and are soon on their own; they leave and don't come back.

5 "Who do you think set the wild donkey free, opened the corral gates and let him go?

6 I gave him the whole wilderness to roam in, the rolling plains and wide-open places.

7 He laughs at his city cousins, who are harnessed and harried. He's oblivious to the cries of teamsters.

8 He grazes freely through the hills, nibbling anything that's green.

9 "Will the wild buffalo condescend to serve you, volunteer to spend the night in your barn?

10 Can you imagine hitching your plow to a buffalo and getting him to till your fields?

11 He's hugely strong, yes, but could you trust him, would you dare turn the job over to him?

12 You wouldn't for a minute depend on him, would you, to do what you said when you said it?

13 "The ostrich flaps her wings futilely - all those beautiful feathers, but useless!

14 She lays her eggs on the hard ground, leaves them there in the dirt, exposed to the weather,

15 Not caring that they might get stepped on and cracked or trampled by some wild animal.

16 She's negligent with her young, as if they weren't even hers. She cares nothing about anything.

17 She wasn't created very smart, that's for sure, wasn't given her share of good sense.

18 But when she runs, oh, how she runs, laughing, leaving horse and rider in the dust.

19 "Are you the one who gave the horse his prowess and adorned him with a shimmering mane?

20 Did you create him to prance proudly and strike terror with his royal snorts?

21 He paws the ground fiercely, eager and spirited, then charges into the fray.

22 He laughs at danger, fearless, doesn't shy away from the sword.

23 The banging and clanging of quiver and lance don't faze him.

24 He quivers with excitement, and at the trumpet blast races off at a gallop.

25 At the sound of the trumpet he neighs mightily, smelling the excitement of battle from a long way off, catching the rolling thunder of the war cries.

26 "Was it through your know how that the hawk learned to fly, soaring effortlessly on thermal updrafts?

27 Did you command the eagle's flight, and teach her to build her nest in the heights,

28 Perfectly at home on the high cliff-face, invulnerable on pinnacle and crag?

29 From her perch she searches for prey, spies it at a great distance.

30 Her young gorge themselves on carrion; wherever there's a roadkill, you'll see her circling."

Job 39 Commentary

Chapter 39

God inquires of Job concerning several animals.

- In these questions the Lord continued to humble Job. In this chapter several animals are spoken of, whose nature or situation particularly show the power, wisdom, and manifold works of God. The wild ass. It is better to labour and be good for something, than to ramble and be good for nothing. From the untameableness of this and other creatures, we may see, how unfit we are to give law to Providence, who cannot give law even to a wild ass's colt. The unicorn, a strong, stately, proud creature. He is able to serve, but not willing; and God challenges Job to force him to it. It is a great mercy if, where God gives strength for service, he gives a heart; it is what we should pray for, and reason ourselves into, which the brutes cannot do. Those gifts are not always the most valuable that make the finest show. Who would not rather have the voice of the nightingale, than the tail of the peacock; the eye of the eagle and her soaring wing, and the natural affection of the stork, than the beautiful feathers of the ostrich, which can never rise above the earth, and is without natural affection? The description of the war-horse helps to explain the character of presumptuous sinners. Every one turneth to his course, as the horse rushes into the battle. When a man's heart is fully set in him to do evil, and he is carried on in a wicked way, by the violence of his appetites and passions, there is no making him fear the wrath of God, and the fatal consequences of sin. Secure sinners think themselves as safe in their sins as the eagle in her nest on high, in the clefts of the rocks; but I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord, ( Jeremiah 49:16 ) . All these beautiful references to the works of nature, should teach us a right view of the riches of the wisdom of Him who made and sustains all things. The want of right views concerning the wisdom of God, which is ever present in all things, led Job to think and speak unworthily of Providence.

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 39

This chapter treats of various creatures, beasts and birds, which Job had little knowledge of, had no concern in the making of them, and scarcely any power over them; as of the goats and hinds, Job 39:1-4; of the wild ass, Job 39:5-8; of the unicorn, Job 39:9-12; of the peacock and ostrich, Job 39:13-18; of the horse, Job 39:19-25; and of the hawk and eagle, Job 39:26-30.