World English Bible
- “Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears fawns?
- Can you count the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they give birth?
- They bow themselves. They bear their young. They end their labor pains.
- Their young ones become strong. They grow up in the open field. They go out, and don’t return again.
- “Who has set the wild donkey free? Or who has loosened the bonds of the swift donkey,
- whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling place?
- He scorns the tumult of the city, neither does he hear the shouting of the driver.
- The range of the mountains is his pasture. He searches after every green thing.
- “Will the wild ox be content to serve you? Or will he stay by your feeding trough?
- Can you hold the wild ox in the furrow with his harness? Or will he till the valleys after you?
- Will you trust him, because his strength is great? Or will you leave to him your labor?
- Will you confide in him, that he will bring home your seed, and gather the grain of your threshing floor?
- “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the feathers and plumage of love?
- For she leaves her eggs on the earth, warms them in the dust,
- and forgets that the foot may crush them, or that the wild animal may trample them.
- She deals harshly with her young ones, as if they were not hers. Though her labor is in vain, she is without fear,
- because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding.
- When she lifts up herself on high, she scorns the horse and his rider.
- “Have you given the horse might? Have you clothed his neck with a quivering mane?
- Have you made him to leap as a locust? The glory of his snorting is awesome.
- He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength. He goes out to meet the armed men.
- He mocks at fear, and is not dismayed, neither does he turn back from the sword.
- The quiver rattles against him, the flashing spear and the javelin.
- He eats up the ground with fierceness and rage, neither does he stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
- As often as the trumpet sounds he snorts, ‘Aha!’ He smells the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
- “Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and stretches her wings toward the south?
- Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up, and makes his nest on high?
- On the cliff he dwells and makes his home, on the point of the cliff and the stronghold.
- From there he spies out the prey. His eyes see it afar off.
- His young ones also suck up blood. Where the slain are, there he is.”
Job 39 — The Gospel of the Untamed
Yesterday the storm was our catechism; today God leads Job on a wilderness pilgrimage. The questions are not meant to humiliate but to widen the horizon: from meteorology to zoology, from power to tenderness, from our need to control to God’s joy in what we cannot harness.
Hidden births (39:1–4) The chapter begins with mountain goats and deer giving birth on inaccessible cliffs. In Hebrew, God asks if Job “knows” their times—the intimate yada of a midwife. Ancient rock art across the Levant often features ibex; their birthing ledges are nearly unreachable. God is not only Commander of storms; He is the quiet Attender of deliveries no human ever sees. Justice, therefore, begins not with our courts but with His care for the hidden and small (cf. Psalm 104).
Freedom without utility (39:5–12) Enter the wild donkey (pere)—the onager of Mesopotamian deserts, found in Bronze Age sites—and the wild ox (re’em), likely the now-extinct aurochs. Neither will plow for us. God delights in their freedom. The modern West, raised on productivity, can miss this: useless-to-us does not mean useless-to-God. Creation’s meaning is not exhausted by human profit. Our earlier reflections noted that God “delights in the ‘wild’ we dismiss.” Here He names them.
The ostrich and the stork (39:13–18) A famous crux: “the wings of the ostrich” (kanaph renanim) are contrasted with the stork (chasidah, “the kindly one,” from hesed). The ostrich seems foolish—eggs left on warm sand, little maternal sense—yet God gives her speed to mock horse and rider. Wisdom literature dares to say: God distributes different gifts, and the “foolishness of God” outruns our cleverness (1 Corinthians 1:25). Archaeologists find ostrich eggs in Levantine tombs—prestige objects in the ancient world—reminding us this creature ran these very lands Job knew.
Horse, hawk, and eagle (39:19–30) The warhorse thrills us with the shofar’s blast, nostrils flaring, “eating the ground” as he charges. God’s description is not an endorsement of war but a declaration: even what we appropriate for our empires belongs first to Him. Israel’s kings were warned not to multiply horses (Deuteronomy 17:16). The Lord of Job 39 later rides into Zion not a warhorse but a donkey (Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21), transfiguring power by humility.
The hawk “toward the south” hints at the great Levantine flyway along the Jordan Rift, where millions of raptors still migrate. The nesher—often “eagle,” likely including vultures—nests high and feeds where the slain lie. Western piety averts its eyes; God does not. He governs even the ecology of death, where carrion becomes provision. Jesus echoes this hard line—“where the vultures gather” (Matthew 24:28, New International Version)—reminding us that the world is upheld in a wisdom both bracing and kind.
Receiving the lesson Gregory the Great allegorized these animals (Moralia in Job), and his readings can edify; yet the first gift is literal: God’s world is not human-centered. It is Christ-centered (Colossians 1:16–17). The One who revels in the warhorse’s thunder chooses a colt; the Lord of the high eyrie descends to a cross; life is fed at places of death and raised in glory. Job is not given a scheme; he is given a wider love.
Cross-references - Psalm 104; Matthew 6:26 - Deuteronomy 17:16; Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21:5 - 1 Corinthians 1:25; Romans 11:33; Colossians 1:16–17 - Matthew 24:28 (New International Version)
Hymn suggestion “God of the Sparrow, God of the Whale” (Jaroslav Vajda)
Prayer Maker of cliffs and cradles, of trumpets and thermals, teach my heart to honor what I cannot manage. Free me from the tyranny of usefulness. Let the folly of the ostrich, the freedom of the onager, and the high patience of the nesher school me in Your wisdom. Lead me, with Job, from answers to adoration, from control to consent, from fear to praise, through Jesus Christ, the humble King. Amen.