When God Shows Off His Wild Side
What’s Job 39 about?
God takes Job on a breathtaking tour of the animal kingdom – from mountain goats giving birth on cliff faces to ostriches that abandon their eggs, from war horses charging into battle to eagles soaring at impossible heights. It’s not just nature documentary footage; it’s God asking Job the ultimate question: “Can you run a world this wild and wonderful?”
The Full Context
Job 39 comes right in the middle of God’s epic response to Job’s demands for answers. After thirty-seven chapters of Job’s friends trying to explain his suffering and Job pleading his case, God finally shows up – but not with the courtroom drama Job expected. Instead, God launches into what might be the most magnificent nature speech in all of Scripture, starting with the cosmos in Job 38 and moving to the animal kingdom in Job 39.
This isn’t God being evasive or changing the subject. The entire speech serves a profound theological purpose: to expand Job’s vision beyond his own suffering to see the breathtaking complexity and beauty of creation. Job has been demanding to know why bad things happen to good people. God’s response essentially says, “Before we talk about running the moral universe, let’s see if you can handle running the natural one.” Chapter 39 specifically focuses on wild animals – creatures that live completely outside human control yet somehow thrive in God’s care. The literary structure moves from domestic to increasingly wild animals, building toward the climactic description of Leviathan in chapters 40-41.
What the Ancient Words Tell Us
The Hebrew poetry here is absolutely stunning. God doesn’t just describe these animals – He celebrates them. The word for “wild donkey” (pere’) literally means “running free,” and when God asks if Job can “loose the bonds of the wild ox” (re’em), He’s using imagery that would make any ancient farmer’s heart skip a beat. These weren’t just big cattle – they were legendary creatures of immense power.
Grammar Geeks
The Hebrew verb yalad (to give birth) appears throughout this chapter in ways that emphasize the mystery of life itself. When God talks about mountain goats “bringing forth” their young, He’s not just describing animal reproduction – He’s pointing to the fundamental miracle that life creates life, something humans can observe but never fully control or understand.
But here’s where it gets really interesting. The Hebrew structure uses a series of rhetorical questions that aren’t meant to humiliate Job, but to invite him into wonder. Each “Do you know…?” and “Can you…?” is written with this tone of genuine amazement, as if God is saying, “Isn’t this incredible? Look what I get to work with every day!”
What Would the Original Audience Have Heard?
Ancient Near Eastern people lived much closer to these animals than we do, so they would have immediately recognized the accuracy of God’s descriptions. When God talks about the ostrich that “treats her young harshly, as though they were not hers” (Job 39:16), shepherds would have nodded knowingly. Ostriches really do seem to abandon their nests, yet somehow their species thrives.
The war horse passage (Job 39:19-25) would have been particularly powerful in a world where military might often determined survival. Ancient armies knew that a good war horse could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Yet here’s God saying He gave horses their strength and fearless spirit – they don’t charge into battle because humans trained them well, but because God designed them with courage in their very DNA.
Did You Know?
The “hawk” mentioned in Job 39:26 likely refers to migrating birds of prey that ancient people observed flying south each winter. Without understanding magnetic fields or GPS systems, people could only marvel at how these birds somehow knew exactly where to go. God is essentially saying, “I’m the one who programmed their internal navigation systems.”
How This Changes Everything
Here’s what I love about this chapter – God doesn’t just list random animals. He specifically chooses creatures that illustrate profound truths about how He runs the universe. The mountain goats give birth in impossible places and somehow their babies survive. The wild donkey refuses domestication yet finds everything it needs in the wilderness. The ostrich seems like a terrible parent but successfully raises offspring.
What’s the pattern? These animals thrive precisely because they operate outside human systems of control and care.
This cuts right to the heart of Job’s complaint. Job has been essentially arguing that if God would just run the world the way Job thinks it should be run – with clear rewards for good behavior and obvious punishments for evil – everything would make sense. But God’s pointing to a creation where success often looks nothing like human logic would predict.
“The God who can make an ostrich survive by seeming like a bad parent might just know something about allowing suffering that leads to unexpected good.”
Wrestling with the Text
But wait – why would God use these particular animals to make His point? Some of the descriptions seem almost playful, even humorous. The ostrich passage reads like divine comedy, with God describing this bird that “flaps its wings joyfully” but then acts completely scatterbrained about protecting its eggs.
I think this is precisely the point. God isn’t trying to overwhelm Job with His power (though that happens naturally). He’s trying to expand Job’s imagination about what wise governance actually looks like. What if the God who runs the universe doesn’t operate by simple reward-and-punishment systems? What if divine wisdom sometimes looks like apparent foolishness from a human perspective?
The war horse section is particularly striking because it shows an animal that actually enjoys danger. This horse “laughs at fear” and “charges into the thick of battle.” God didn’t create a world where all creatures flee from difficulty – some of them run toward it with joy. Could it be that God’s people might be designed for something similar?
Wait, That’s Strange…
The eagle in Job 39:27-30 builds its nest “on high” and feeds its young with blood from its kills. This seems like a strange choice to end the chapter – until you realize God is describing a creature that thrives in places where no human can survive, yet successfully raises its family. Sometimes what looks harsh from ground level is actually perfect provision from heaven’s perspective.
Key Takeaway
God’s wisdom in running the world often looks nothing like human wisdom – and that’s not a bug in the system, it’s a feature. The God who can successfully manage mountain goats, wild donkeys, ostriches, war horses, and eagles simultaneously might just know how to handle the complexities of human suffering too.
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