Yahweh: The Wild Animals and the Horse
1 “Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears fawns? 2 Can you count the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they give birth? 3 They bow themselves. They bear their young. They end their labor pains. 4 Their young ones become strong. They grow up in the open field. They go out, and don’t return again. 5 “Who has set the wild donkey free? Or who has loosened the bonds of the swift donkey, 6 whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling place? 7 He scorns the tumult of the city, neither does he hear the shouting of the driver. 8 The range of the mountains is his pasture. He searches after every green thing. 9 “Will the wild ox be content to serve you? Or will he stay by your feeding trough? 10 Can you hold the wild ox in the furrow with his harness? Or will he till the valleys after you? 11 Will you trust him, because his strength is great? Or will you leave to him your labor? 12 Will you confide in him, that he will bring home your seed, and gather the grain of your threshing floor? 13 “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the feathers and plumage of love? 14 For she leaves her eggs on the earth, warms them in the dust, 15 and forgets that the foot may crush them, or that the wild animal may trample them. 16 She deals harshly with her young ones, as if they were not hers. Though her labor is in vain, she is without fear, 17 because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding. 18 When she lifts up herself on high, she scorns the horse and his rider. 19 “Have you given the horse might? Have you clothed his neck with a quivering mane? 20 Have you made him to leap as a locust? The glory of his snorting is awesome. 21 He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength. He goes out to meet the armed men. 22 He mocks at fear, and is not dismayed, neither does he turn back from the sword. 23 The quiver rattles against him, the flashing spear and the javelin. 24 He eats up the ground with fierceness and rage, neither does he stand still at the sound of the trumpet. 25 As often as the trumpet sounds he snorts, ‘Aha!’ He smells the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. 26 “Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and stretches her wings toward the south? 27 Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up, and makes his nest on high? 28 On the cliff he dwells and makes his home, on the point of the cliff and the stronghold. 29 From there he spies out the prey. His eyes see it afar off. 30 His young ones also suck up blood. Where the slain are, there he is.”
The tour is entirely of creatures nobody owns, and one of them is described as having been made without sense.
The chapter is a parade of animals, and what they have in common is that none of them is useful to anybody.
The mountain goats give birth in places no herdsman watches, and their young go out, and don't return again Job 39:1–4. Nobody counts them and nobody profits.
The wild donkey has been deliberately released — who has set the wild donkey free? — and given the wilderness and the salt flats as a home. He scorns the tumult of the city, and does not hear a driver shouting Job 39:5–7. His freedom is described as a gift, and it is freedom specifically from human employment.
The wild ox is the same argument turned into a joke at Job's expense. Will he stay by your feeding trough? Can you get a harness on him and plow with him? Will you confide in him, that he will bring home your seed? Job 39:9–12. Job owned five hundred yoke of oxen Job 1:3. He knows exactly what an ox is for, and this one cannot be made to do any of it.
Then the ostrich, and it is the strangest passage in the speech. She leaves her eggs in the dust and forgets that the foot may crush them; she deals harshly with her young as if they were not hers; her labor is in vain Job 39:14–16.
And the reason given is not her fault: God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding Job 39:17.
God says he made a creature without sense, and describes its poor mothering as his own doing. This is said to a man whose children died and who has spent thirty chapters demanding that the world make sense. And then, without transition, the next line: when she lifts up herself on high, she scorns the horse and his rider Job 39:18. The foolish bird outruns cavalry.
She is absurd and magnificent and nobody's asset, and God is evidently pleased with her. Nothing is explained. A world containing an ostrich is not a world organized by the friends' arithmetic.
The horse gets the finest lines in the chapter, and he is the one domesticated animal in it — but the part described is the part no owner produced. Have you clothed his neck with a quivering mane? He mocks at fear, does not turn from the sword, eats up the ground with fierceness and rage, and at the trumpet he snorts Aha! and smells the battle afar off Job 39:19–25.
A man can train a horse. Nobody put that in him.
The hawk and the eagle close it, and the last verse is not tidied: the eagle's young suck up blood. Where the slain are, there he is Job 39:30. The tour of God's care for his creatures ends on carrion. The world he is defending is not a gentle one, and he does not present it as gentle.
settled What this mark means