XXXIX.

(4) They grow up with corn.—Or more probably, perhaps, in the open field, as the word means according to some.

Job 39:4. Their young ones are in good liking — Notwithstanding their great weakness caused by their hard entrance into the world. They grow up with corn — As with corn; that is, as if they were fed with corn. They go forth and return not — Finding sufficient provisions abroad by the care of God’s providence.

39:1-30 God inquires of Job concerning several animals. - In these questions the Lord continued to humble Job. In this chapter several animals are spoken of, whose nature or situation particularly show the power, wisdom, and manifold works of God. The wild ass. It is better to labour and be good for something, than to ramble and be good for nothing. From the untameableness of this and other creatures, we may see, how unfit we are to give law to Providence, who cannot give law even to a wild ass's colt. The unicorn, a strong, stately, proud creature. He is able to serve, but not willing; and God challenges Job to force him to it. It is a great mercy if, where God gives strength for service, he gives a heart; it is what we should pray for, and reason ourselves into, which the brutes cannot do. Those gifts are not always the most valuable that make the finest show. Who would not rather have the voice of the nightingale, than the tail of the peacock; the eye of the eagle and her soaring wing, and the natural affection of the stork, than the beautiful feathers of the ostrich, which can never rise above the earth, and is without natural affection? The description of the war-horse helps to explain the character of presumptuous sinners. Every one turneth to his course, as the horse rushes into the battle. When a man's heart is fully set in him to do evil, and he is carried on in a wicked way, by the violence of his appetites and passions, there is no making him fear the wrath of God, and the fatal consequences of sin. Secure sinners think themselves as safe in their sins as the eagle in her nest on high, in the clefts of the rocks; but I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord, #Jer 49:16". All these beautiful references to the works of nature, should teach us a right view of the riches of the wisdom of Him who made and sustains all things. The want of right views concerning the wisdom of God, which is ever present in all things, led Job to think and speak unworthily of Providence.Their young ones are in good liking - Hebrew "they are fat;" and hence, it means that they are strong and robust.

They grow up with corn - Herder, Gesenius, Noyes, Umbreit, and Rosenmuller render this, "in the wilderness," or "field." The proper and usual meaning of the word used here (בר bâr) is corn (grain); but in Chaldee it has the sense of open fields, or country. The same idea is found in the Arabic, and this sense seems to be required by the connection. The idea is not that they are nurtured with grain, which would require the care of man, but that they are nurtured under the direct eye of God far away from human dwellings, and even when they go away from their dam and return no more to the place of their birth. This is one of the instances, therefore, in which the connection seems to require us to adopt a signification that does not elsewhere occur in the Hebrew, but which is found in the cognate languages.

They go forth, and return not unto them - God guards and preserves them, even when they wander away from their dam, and are left helpless. Many of the young of animals require long attention from man, many are kept for a considerable period by the side of the mother, but the idea here seems to be, that the young of the wild goat and of the fawn are thrown early on the providence of God, and are protected by him alone. The particular care of Providence over these animals seems to be specified because there are no others that are exposed to so many dangers in their early life. "Every creature then is a formidable enemy. The eagle, the falcon, the osprey, the wolf, the dog, and all the rapacious animals of the cat kind, are in continual employment to find out their retreat. But what is more unnatural still, the stag himself is a professed enemy, and she, the hind, is obliged to use all her arts to conceal her young from him, as from the most dangerous of her pursuers." "Goldsmith's Nat. His."

4. are in good liking—in good condition, grow up strong.

with corn—rather, "in the field," without man's care.

return not—being able to provide for themselves.

Are in good liking; or, grow strong, or fat; notwithstanding their great weakness caused by their hard entrance into the world.

With corn; which they find and feed upon in the fields. Or, as with corn, i.e. as if they were fed with corn; the particle as being oft deficient, and to be supplied. Or, in the field, as this word in the Chaldee or Syriac dialect signifies.

Return not unto them; finding sufficient provisions abroad by the care and conduct of God’s providence.

Their young ones are in good liking,.... Plump, fat, and sleek, as fawns are:

they grow up with corn; by which they grow, or without in the field, as the word also signifies; and their growth and increase is very quick, as Aristotle observes (l);

they go forth, and return not unto them: they go forth into the fields, and shift and provide for themselves, and trouble their dams no more; and return not to them, nor are they known by them.

(l) Ib. (Aristot. Hist. Animal.) l. 6. c. 29.

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