Job 39

1 Do you know when mountain goats are born? Have you watched wild deer give birth?

2 Do you know how long they carry their young? Do you know the time for their birth?

3 Do you know when they will crouch down and bring their young into the world?

4 In the wilds their young grow strong; they go away and don't come back.

5 Who gave the wild donkeys their freedom? Who turned them loose and let them roam?

6 I gave them the desert to be their home, and let them live on the salt plains.

7 They keep far away from the noisy cities, and no one can tame them and make them work.

8 The mountains are the pastures where they feed, where they search for anything green to eat.

9 Will a wild ox work for you? Is he willing to spend the night in your stable?

10 Can you hold one with a rope and make him plow? Or make him pull a harrow in your fields?

11 Can you rely on his great strength and expect him to do your heavy work?

12 Do you expect him to bring in your harvest and gather the grain from your threshing place?

13 How fast the wings of an ostrich beat! But no ostrich can fly like a stork.

14 The ostrich leaves her eggs on the ground for the heat in the soil to warm them.

15 She is unaware that a foot may crush them or a wild animal break them.

16 She acts as if the eggs were not hers, and is unconcerned that her efforts were wasted.

17 It was I who made her foolish and did not give her wisdom.

18 But when she begins to run, she can laugh at any horse and rider.

19 Was it you, Job, who made horses so strong and gave them their flowing manes?

20 Did you make them leap like locusts and frighten people with their snorting?

21 They eagerly paw the ground in the valley; they rush into battle with all their strength.

22 They do not know the meaning of fear, and no sword can turn them back.

23 The weapons which their riders carry rattle and flash in the sun.

24 Trembling with excitement, the horses race ahead; when the trumpet blows, they can't stand still.

25 At each blast of the trumpet they snort; they can smell a battle before they get near, and they hear the officers shouting commands.

26 Does a hawk learn from you how to fly when it spreads its wings toward the south?

27 Does an eagle wait for your command to build its nest high in the mountains?

28 It makes its home on the highest rocks and makes the sharp peaks its fortress.

29 From there it watches near and far for something to kill and eat.

30 Around dead bodies the eagles gather, ¹ and the young eagles drink the blood.

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.

Cross References

• 1. 39.30Matthew 24.28;Luke 17.37.

Footnotes

• [a]. [Verse 13 in Hebrew is unclear.]
• [b]. [Probable text] run; [Hebrew unclear.]

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.