Context No. 5 of 4322 · Job
Context · Reflection
Job 39:17-30: in context
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 his rider. 19“Have you given the horse 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 eats up the ground with fierceness and rage, neither does he stand still at the sound of the trumpet. 25As often as the trumpet sounds he snorts, ‘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.”
The book of Job is a long argument about suffering. Job is a good man who loses his children, his wealth, and his health for no reason he can see. His friends insist he must have done something to deserve it. Job refuses that, keeps insisting he is innocent, and demands that God appear and answer the charge. For most of the book God is silent. Then, near the end, God finally speaks out of a whirlwind (38:1), and the reply is not a defense. It is a long tour of the world, and Job's case is never mentioned.
This part of the tour is a parade of animals that people cannot use or control. The ostrich has no wisdom and treats her eggs carelessly, yet when she runs she leaves the horse behind (39:13-18). The war-horse is not a servant here but a creature drunk on the charge, mocking fear, smelling the battle from far off. The hawk and the eagle keep their own counsel on the cliffs, and the eagle's young feed where the killing is: from there he spies out the prey, and where the slain are, there he is.
God answers a demand for justice by pointing at a wild ostrich and a bird that feeds on carrion. The world is larger and stranger than the account Job wanted settled. What am I still demanding an explanation for, when the world is this much larger than my case?
Sources
- Job 38:1-42:6: God's answer to Job from the whirlwind, of which these verses are part
- Job 39:13-18: the ostrich, set just before these lines as foolish yet swift
- Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job: the long early Christian commentary on the book