For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage Job 39:1-30

1 ‘Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
    Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?
2 Do you count the months till they bear?
    Do you know the time they give birth?
3 They crouch down and bring forth their young;
    their labour pains are ended.
4 Their young thrive and grow strong in the wilds;
    they leave and do not return.

5 ‘Who let the wild donkey go free?
    Who untied its ropes?
6 I gave it the wasteland as its home,
    the salt flats as its habitat.
7 It laughs at the commotion in the town;
    it does not hear a driver’s shout.
8 It ranges the hills for its pasture
    and searches for any green thing.

9 ‘Will the wild ox consent to serve you?
    Will it stay by your manger at night?
10 Can you hold it to the furrow with a harness?
    Will it till the valleys behind you?
11 Will you rely on it for its great strength?
    Will you leave your heavy work to it?
12 Can you trust it to haul in your grain
    and bring it to your threshing-floor?

13 ‘The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully,
    though they cannot compare
    with the wings and feathers of the stork.
14 She lays her eggs on the ground
    and lets them warm in the sand,
15 unmindful that a foot may crush them,
    that some wild animal may trample them.
16 She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers;
    she cares not that her labour was in vain,
17 for God did not endow her with wisdom
    or give her a share of good sense.
18 Yet when she spreads her feathers to run,
    she laughs at horse and rider.

19 ‘Do you give the horse its strength
    or clothe its neck with a flowing mane?
20 Do you make it leap like a locust,
    striking terror with its proud snorting?
21 It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength,
    and charges into the fray.
22 It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing;
    it does not shy away from the sword.
23 The quiver rattles against its side,
    along with the flashing spear and lance.
24 In frenzied excitement it eats up the ground;
    it cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.
25 At the blast of the trumpet it snorts, “Aha!”
    It catches the scent of battle from afar,
    the shout of commanders and the battle cry.

26 ‘Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom
    and spread its wings towards the south?
27 Does the eagle soar at your command
    and build its nest on high?
28 It dwells on a cliff and stays there at night;
    a rocky crag is its stronghold.
29 From there it looks for food;
    its eyes detect it from afar.
30 Its young ones feast on blood,
    and where the slain are, there it is.’

A. Find Out

1. About what does the Lord next ask? v.1-4
2. About what next? v.5-8
3. And then? v.9-12
4. And then? v.13-18
5. And then? v.19-25
6. And then? v.26-30

B. Think:

1. Go through each of the six wild creatures here, and carefully observe what is being asked about each one.
2. What is the point of this information?

C. Comment:

In a day when excellent Television programmes report so much on the creatures of the world, we may be tempted to think that we know a lot, especially if we are ‘experts’ in this field, yet the truth is that whatever we know is still very little in the face of the sum of all knowledge. Move into another area of ‘expertise’ and we are lost. So what is the point of this chapter that lists questions about six wild animals – mountain goats (v.1), the wild donkey (v.5), the wild ox (v.9), the ostrich (v.13), the war horse (v.19), and the hawk (v.26)?

In each paragraph the Lord describes certain features of these creatures that make them unique – the goats that breed in the wild (v.3), the donkey that wanders far and near (v.5-8), the ox with his great untameable strength (v.9-12), the ostrich with her apparently wild ways (v.13-18), the horse with his apparent strength and courage (v.19-25), and the hawk who soars in the skies and sees all (v.26-30). God knows His Creation, He knows the creatures He has made, each with their own distinctives. For us it is a learning process, finding out about all these creatures and many more, but not so for the Lord, for He designed them, He made them and so He knows everything there is to know about them. The gulf between Him and us gets bigger and bigger as we reflect upon these things!

D. Application:

1. For us everything is part of a learning process.
2. God knows everything and has no need to ‘learn’ anything.