Job 39

Do you know the time when the wild mountain goats give birth? Have you watched a deer when her fawn is born?

1Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth? or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve?

NoteThis chapter continues without a break the speech God began in chapter 38, spoken to Job out of the storm; the "I" in verse 6 is God speaking. "Hinds" is old English for female deer, and "bring forth" and "calve" both simply mean to give birth. Wild goats and deer bear their young in remote high country, away from any human witness.

2Can you count the months they carry their young? Do you know the time when they give birth?

2Canst thou number the months that they fulfil? or knowest thou the time when they bring forth?

3They crouch down, and their young come out. Their labor pains are over.

3They bow themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast out their sorrows.

Note"They cast out their sorrows" is 1611 English, not a statement about grief. The Hebrew word means birth-pangs; the line describes the end of labor, and may also refer to expelling the afterbirth.

4Their young grow healthy and strong out in the open country. They go off on their own and do not come back.

4Their young ones are in good liking, they grow up with corn; they go forth, and return not unto them.

Note"Corn" in the King James means grain of any sort, wheat or barley. It never means maize or sweetcorn, which were unknown in England in 1611. The Hebrew word here is uncertain and may instead mean open country or open grain-land, which is how most modern translations read it.

5Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied the ropes that held him?

5Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?

NoteThe two halves of the verse use two different Hebrew words for the wild donkey. This is not the domesticated donkey that carried loads and turned mills, but the wild ass of the Syrian and Arabian deserts: fast, and never successfully tamed.

6I gave him the desert for a home, and the salt flats for a place to live.

6Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings.

Note"Barren land" translates a Hebrew word meaning salt flats, ground so salty that nothing will grow in it.

7He laughs at the noise and crowds of a city. He never has to listen to a driver shouting at him.

7He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver.

NoteThe "driver" is the man who walks behind a working animal shouting and goading it on. A domesticated donkey spent its whole life under that voice; the wild one never hears it.

8He roams the hills looking for pasture, searching for anything green.

8The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing.

9Will the wild ox agree to work for you? Will he spend the night by your feeding trough?

9Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?

Note"Unicorn" is a mistranslation inherited by the King James from the older Greek and Latin Bibles. The Hebrew re'em is the aurochs, a massive wild ox with long forward-curving horns, once common in the Near East and hunted to extinction in the seventeenth century. "Crib" is 1611 English for a feeding trough, the same word later used for the manger at Bethlehem. The question imagines yoking this animal to farm work like an ordinary ox.

10Can you harness him and hold him in the plow row? Will he break up the soil of the valleys behind you?

10Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?

NoteThe "band" is the harness rope that holds a plow animal to the furrow. To "harrow" is to drag a weighted frame across plowed ground to break the clods into a seedbed.

11Will you count on him because his strength is so great? Will you hand your hard work over to him?

11Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him?

12Will you trust him to bring in your grain and gather it to your threshing floor?

12Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?

Note"Barn" translates the Hebrew word for a threshing floor: a flat, hard-packed circle of earth or bare rock, usually on a windy rise, where the cut grain was beaten and then tossed into the air so the wind carried off the chaff. "Seed" here means the harvested grain, not what is planted.

13The ostrich flaps her wings with joy, but they are not like the wings and feathers of the stork.

13Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?

NoteThe King James "peacocks" is a guess by the translators; the Hebrew names the ostrich, and this verse is one of the most difficult in the book. The second bird is also uncertain, most take it as the stork, some as a heron. The contrast is between the ostrich's large but useless wings, which cannot lift her, and the wings of a bird that genuinely flies.

14She leaves her eggs on the ground and lets the warm sand heat them.

14Which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in dust,

NoteOstriches really do lay their eggs in a shallow scrape in open sand and leave them uncovered through the heat of the day, letting the sun do the warming. To ancient observers this looked like abandonment.

15She forgets that a foot may crush them, or that a wild animal may trample them.

15And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them.

16She is harsh with her chicks, as if they were not hers. It does not trouble her that her work may come to nothing.

16She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers: her labour is in vain without fear;

Note"Her labour is in vain without fear" is compressed 1611 English. It means she has no anxiety or concern about the possibility that all her effort will come to nothing.

17That is because God did not give her wisdom. He gave her no share of understanding.

17Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding.

18Yet when she gets up and runs with her wings spread high, she laughs at the horse and its rider.

18What time she lifteth up herself on high, she scorneth the horse and his rider.

NoteAn ostrich runs at around forty miles an hour and can outlast a horse over distance, which is why she can "scorn" the horse and its rider.

19Did you give the horse his strength? Did you dress his neck with a flowing mane?

19Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?

Note"Clothed his neck with thunder" renders a Hebrew word whose meaning is disputed. It may name the horse's mane, as most modern versions take it, or a rippling, quivering strength in the neck. Translators have gone both ways.

20Do you make him leap forward like a locust? His proud snorting is frightening.

20Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? the glory of his nostrils is terrible.

NoteThe King James "make him afraid as a grasshopper" misreads the Hebrew verb, which is about leaping, not fear. The insect is the locust, and the comparison is to the sudden spring of a locust taking off.

21He paws the ground in the valley and delights in his strength. He charges out to meet the armed men.

21He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed men.

22He laughs at fear and is afraid of nothing. He does not turn back from the sword.

22He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted; neither turneth he back from the sword.

23The quiver of arrows rattles against his side, along with the flashing spear and the javelin.

23The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield.

NoteThe quiver is the rider's case of arrows, worn so that it knocks and rattles against the horse's flank at a gallop. The third weapon is more probably a javelin or short lance than the King James's "shield".

24Shaking with excitement, he eats up the ground. He cannot hold still when the ram's horn sounds.

24He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage: neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet.

Note"He swalloweth the ground" is a word-for-word rendering of a Hebrew idiom for eating up distance at speed. The last clause is obscure in the King James; the sense is that the horse cannot be held still once the signal sounds. The "trumpet" is the shofar, a ram's horn blown to give battle signals.

25At each blast of the horn he snorts. He smells the battle far off, the shouted orders of the commanders, and the war cry.

25He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

Note"Ha, ha" is the translators' attempt at a Hebrew word imitating the horse's snort at the horn-blast. "The thunder of the captains" means the roar of officers shouting commands across the field.

26Does the hawk fly by your understanding, spreading her wings toward the south?

26Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south?

Note"Toward the south" points to the seasonal migration of birds of prey, which leave for the south each autumn, a movement people observed every year without knowing where the birds went or what directed them.

27Does the eagle soar because you command it, and build her nest high up?

27Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?

NoteThe Hebrew word nesher covers both the eagle and the griffon vulture, a bird with a wingspan near nine feet that nests on high cliffs and feeds on carcasses. Verse 30 fits the vulture better than the eagle, and translators have long divided over which is meant.

28She lives on the cliff and stays there through the night, on a rocky crag, her safe stronghold.

28She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place.

Note"Abideth" here means spends the night. "The strong place" is a stronghold or fortress: the crag is being described as a fortification no attacker can reach.

29From there she looks for food. Her eyes see it far away.

29From thence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar off.

30Her young ones drink up blood, and wherever the dead lie, there she is.

30Her young ones also suck up blood: and where the slain are, there is she.

Note"Suck up blood" describes nestlings being fed on carrion. "The slain" are men killed in battle and left unburied on the field, which such birds find and gather over.