Bible Study Job 39
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Job 39 · WEB

God's Speech: The Wild Animals

Listen — WEB narration 0:00 / 0:00 Narration: World English Bible (David Williams), public domain — AudioTreasure.

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\"Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears fawns?
2Can you number the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they give birth?
3They bow themselves and bear their young. They end their labor pains.
4Their young ones become strong. They grow up in the open field. They go out and don't return to them.
5\"Who has set the wild donkey free? Or who has loosened the bonds of the swift donkey,
6whose home I have made the wilderness and the salt land his dwelling place?
7He scorns the tumult of the city, neither does he hear the shouting of the driver.
8He ranges the mountains as his pasture and searches after every green thing.
9\"Will the wild ox be content to serve you? Or will he stay by your feeding trough?
10Can you hold the wild ox in the furrow with his harness? Or will he till the valleys after you?
11Will you trust him, because his strength is great? Or will you leave your labor to him?
12Will 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?
14For she leaves her eggs on the earth, warms them in the dust
15and forgets that the foot may crush them or that the wild animal may trample them.
16She is hardened against her young ones as if they were not hers. Though her labor is in vain, she is without fear,
17because God has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding.
18When she lifts up herself on high, she scorns the horse and its rider.
19\"Have you given the horse his might? Have you clothed his neck with a quivering mane?
20Have you made him to leap as a locust? The glory of his snorting is awesome.
21He paws in the valley and rejoices in his strength. He goes out to meet the armed men.
22He mocks at fear and is not dismayed, neither does he turn back from the sword.
23The quiver rattles against him, the flashing spear and the javelin.
24He swallows the ground with fierceness and rage, neither does he stand still at the sound of the trumpet.
25As often as the trumpet sounds he says, '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?
27Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high?
28On the cliff he dwells and makes his home, on the point of the cliff and the stronghold.
29From there he spies out the prey. His eyes see it afar off.
30His young ones also suck up blood. Where the slain are, there he is.\"
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Summary

God continues his creation speech by parading the wild animals before Job — the mountain goat, the wild donkey free in the desert, the untameable wild ox, the strangely unmaternal ostrich, the warhorse that scorns fear, the hawk soaring south by instinct, the eagle nesting on cliffs and drinking blood. Each creature operates by its own God-given nature, outside human management or comprehension. Job did not design any of them, cannot command any of them, and does not know the secret of their lives. The world is far more vast and wildly varied than Job's theology of retribution has room for.

Themes

  • Wild creation as beyond human control or comprehension
  • The diversity of creaturely wisdom — each animal given its own kind of knowledge
  • God's intimate knowledge of and delight in creatures humans barely notice

Key verses

  • Job 39:19 — “\"Have you given the horse his might? Have you clothed his neck with a quivering mane?\”
  • Job 39:27-28 — “\"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.\”
  • Job 39:5-6 — “\"Who has set the wild donkey free?... whose home I have made the wilderness and the salt land his dwelling place.\”

Context & background

The animals in this chapter are drawn from the wild, not the domestic — this is deliberate. God's point is not that nature is orderly and manageable but that it is wildly, gloriously undomesticated. The wild ox (*re'em*, likely an aurochs — the extinct ancestor of domestic cattle) was proverbially untameable in antiquity. The ostrich's apparent neglect of her eggs (vv. 13-17) is explained as God's deliberate withholding of maternal wisdom — a striking statement that different creatures are given different capacities by design. The warhorse (vv. 19-25) is one of the most vivid animal portraits in ancient literature — trembling with excitement, snorting glory, rushing headlong at the sound of the trumpet. The eagle drinking blood where the slain lie (v. 30) deliberately evokes the rawness and violence of the natural world that a sanitized theodicy cannot account for.

Cross-references

  • Genesis 1:20-25 — God creating wild animals and birds \"according to their kind\" — the same wildness God now surveys with Job
  • Matthew 6:26 — \"Look at the birds of the sky... your heavenly Father feeds them\" — God's care for wild creatures extends to the NT
  • Proverbs 30:18-19 — \"The way of an eagle in the air\" among things too wonderful to understand — same sense of creaturely mystery
  • Psalm 104:10-23 — God giving water to wild donkeys, birds nesting in trees, lions hunting at night — the same wild creation sustained by God
  • Romans 8:20-22 — Creation subjected to futility but groaning for redemption — the wild creation has its own story with God

Check your reading

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  1. Observe

    Which animals does God parade before Job in this chapter?

  2. Observe

    According to God, why does the ostrich behave as she does toward her young?

  3. Interpret

    What does the wide diversity of creaturely wisdom across these animals reveal about God?

  4. Interpret

    What does the unsanitized portrait of the warhorse and the blood-drinking eagle reveal about God's character?

  5. Apply

    What does God's precise knowledge of the mountain goat's birthing time suggest about his knowledge of your life?

  6. Apply

    How might the image of the wild donkey ranging freely in the wilderness (vv. 5-8) speak to you?

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