391 Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth? dost thou mark the calving of the hinds? 2 Dost thou number the months that they fulfil? and knowest thou the time when they bring forth? 3 They bow themselves, they give birth to their young ones, they cast out their pains; 4 Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open field, they go forth, and return not unto them. 5 Who hath sent out the wild ass free? and who hath loosed the bands of the onager, 6 Whose house I made the wilderness, and the salt plain his dwellings? 7 He laugheth at the tumult of the city, and heareth not the shouts of the driver; 8 The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing. 9 Will the buffalo be willing to serve thee, or will he lodge by thy crib? 10 Canst thou bind the buffalo with his cord in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? 11 Wilt thou put confidence in him, because his strength is great? and wilt thou leave thy labour to him? 12 Wilt thou trust him to bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy threshing-floor?
13 The wing of the ostrich beats joyously—But is it the stork's pinion and plumage? 14 For she leaveth her eggs to the earth, and warmeth them in the dust, 15 And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the beast of the field may trample them. 16 She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers; her labour is in vain, without her concern. 17 For +God hath deprived her of wisdom, and hath not furnished her with understanding. 18 What time she lasheth herself on high, she scorneth the horse and his rider.
19 Hast thou given strength to the horse? hast thou clothed his neck with the quivering mane? 20 Dost thou make him to leap as a locust? His majestic snorting is terrible. 21 He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in [his] strength; he goeth forth to meet the armed host. 22 He laugheth at fear, and is not affrighted; neither turneth he back from before the sword. 23 The quiver rattleth upon him, the glittering spear and the javelin. 24 He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage, and cannot contain himself at the sound of the trumpet:
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 39:1-24
Chapter Contents
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.