Scripture Daily

Context No. 2084 of 4322 · Job

Context · Reflection

Job 39:1-16: in context

1“Do you know the time when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears fawns? 2Can you count the months that they fulfill? Or do you know the time when they give birth? 3They bow themselves. They 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 again. 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. 8The 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? 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 to him your labor? 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 deals harshly with her young ones, as if they were not hers. Though her labor is in vain, she is without fear,

God continues to answer Job out of the whirlwind, not with explanations of his suffering but with questions about the created world, especially the wild creatures beyond human reach. Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? God asks. Who set the wild donkey free? Will the wild ox consent to serve you? He points Job to creatures no one tames, whose ways no one fully knows, whom God alone governs and provides for, in the wild places far beyond human sight and control.

God's questions about the wild creatures are meant to humble Job, and they humble us too. The mountain goats give birth in remote places no one watches; the wild donkey roams free where God set it, scorning the city; the wild ox will not serve or be harnessed by any human hand. These are creatures beyond our knowledge and beyond our control, whose ways we do not fully understand and whose lives we do not govern. And yet God knows them, governs them, provides for them. There is a whole world of creatures God tends that lies entirely outside human knowledge and mastery. This confronts our sense of our own knowledge and control. We can imagine that we understand and govern a great deal, that the world is largely within our comprehension and mastery. God's questions dismantle this. There are creatures whose birthing we never witness, whose freedom we did not grant and cannot revoke, whom we cannot tame or harness, whose ways exceed our knowledge entirely. And these God knows and sustains. If so much of even the natural world lies beyond our knowledge and control, how much more does the whole of God's governance exceed us. This humbles our pretension to understand and manage everything, including the reasons for our own sufferings. But the humbling carries a comfort within it. For the God who knows and provides for the wild creatures we cannot even track, who sustains a world beyond our sight and mastery, is not a God whose care is limited by our understanding. He governs and provides far beyond what we know. These all wait for you, the psalm says of the creatures; you open your hand, they are satisfied. If God so knows and tends the wild ox and the mountain goat, creatures beyond our care, then his knowledge and care over us are surely not less. Look at the birds, Jesus says; your heavenly Father feeds them; are you not of more value? The vastness of God's governance, which humbles our pretension to understand and control, also assures us that we are held within a care far greater than our own comprehension. God's questions about the wild creatures humble us before what we do not know and cannot govern, and comfort us that the God who tends the wild world tends us within a care that exceeds all we can grasp.

Do I imagine that I understand and control a great deal, that the world is largely within my comprehension and mastery, and can God's questions to Job about the wild creatures he alone knows and provides for, beyond all human knowledge and control, humble my pretension to understand and govern everything, while comforting me that the God who tends the wild world I cannot even track holds me within a care that exceeds all I can grasp?

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