Job 39:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

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Job 39:1

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Because Job has demonstrated a decided reluctance to acknowledge his fault, the Lord interrogates him at length and with some degree of rigour, for he is a true believer and must be brought to repentance. But how are we to understand this series of questions about the animal world, and what was Job to learn from them? Some questions address Job’s knowledge; some address his strength, some his courage, his power, his ability to design and create, and some his ability to control or to manage the created order. These questions test Job from many different angles. But it is not so much his physical abilities as it is his spiritual qualities that are under the microscope, and so in applying the Lord’s examination of him we must look for spiritual lessons.This question is designed to show how limited is Job’s knowledge. It goes far beyond that, but can Job even say what are the gestation periods of the various animals that God names? Here is a basic minimum of knowledge about the world in which he lives, which he claims to be familiar with. God does not even ask the hardest question here; he starts with the easiest question – a mere acquaintance with the facts – and even this Job cannot answer. God of course knows all these things and this is a tiny part of the knowledge that he must have in order to be the sovereign Lord over all that he has created. Job has challenged God’s government of the world, his fairness in dealing with his people, but what does Job know about how God governs even the animal world? Can Job do better himself? If he were to take responsibility for operating the created order, he would at least need to know these raw facts. The wild mountain goats give birth far away from the prying eye of man, for they instinctively move to the most remote areas where they will not be interfered with and can deliver their young in isolation. Yet God sees and oversees and knows each one, and marks the birth and the death of every living creature in the world. He understates marvellously his part in all of this for he is not only aware of all that takes place in creation, but he designed all, planned all, and makes all serve his eternal purpose. Can you number their days, Job? Do you understand the process by which their young grow within them and when they are ready to give birth, when the life being nurtured within is viable, how the birth process takes place? Could you bring it about? It is a marvel that life comes from life, that instincts are put in place that ensure the nurturing of the young by creatures that may be ruthlessly cruel to their prey, and show little affection even within their own society at other times. The Lord speaks of the entire lifecycle including the nurturing of progeny until they are old enough to go off into the world as independent adults. These wild goats were very common in Job’s area. They were not large but they were powerful and vigorous with three-foot horns curling back. They ascend the mountains at speed and come down to graze in the woods at night. They are tough; they cannot easily be caught, but there is a tenderness among them. They ‘cast out their sorrows’ – it is a beautiful expression describe how they get over the pangs of giving birth. The Lord addresses a great poet and therefore speak with poetry.

Application

The underlying assumption behind these questions is that God is responsible for all that takes place, and therefore they are all looked upon as examples of his marvellous workmanship. God not only knows when all these events take place and how they take place, but he is at work in every instance, and so they are visible examples of his skill. Nature is not viewed as self-created or self-sustaining in these chapters. When the modern-day secular biologist studies the animal kingdom, it does not rouse him to give praise to God, because he sees nature as something which just is the way it is, and he takes it as a given. It may be a small wonder to him that time and chance have created such intricate life-forms – although, even here, he does not adequately grasp their marvellous nature – but he certainly does not give credit to an intelligent Designer and Creator who is the source of all life and its variety and who upholds it. The doctrine of evolution is most harmful to man, for it removes from him one of the chief means by which his pride is kept low. It replaces all the works of God with natural mechanisms which are self-sustaining and self-directing, and there is no providential oversight of creation. The theory of evolution has robbed him of much of his sense of wonder. The believer, however, starts with the premise that nothing would exist if God had not made it. For that reason, all that we see is evidence of his craftmanship. He has created the different forms of life in the first place – each kind having its own unique pattern of life – and he continues to uphold it in existence, so that every birth that takes place is a tribute to his power and skill. It is obvious that God is highlighting his workmanship in these verses, for as the passage goes on he draws attention to the fact that it is he who is still causing all these things to take place. He sends out the wild ass (verse 5); he has made its house the wilderness (verse 6); he has tamed the untameable unicorn (verse 10); he has given each one its peculiar characteristics, such as depriving the unicorn of wisdom (verse 17).

Some see in this an implicit comparison with Job himself. Their birth pains come upon them and tell them that their time has come. They go down on their knees and bring forth; it is as natural as anything. Why can’t you get through the pain of this period of discipline, Job, and see that in painful things God has a blessing? God puts in them an instinct to care for their young, but it is only for a time. They bring forth their young; they nurture them; but then their offspring go forth and do not return again. They are off living their own lives. Their young give them no lasting pleasure for they leave and their mothers are indifferent to them, yet for a short time they are cared for them. You see a reflection of the handiwork of God, his tenderness. If God insists on showing this in such parts of nature, can you not depend on him to be tender to his people, Job?

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Job 39:1 Commentary and Bible Study