Two different words are used in Hebrew for the ass or donkey, but they are evidently similar and may well be two words describing the same creature, for a single description of the animal’s behaviour follows. The freedom of the wild ass or onager to roam across the great open spaces is what is admired here. God has made its home to be the wilderness where there are no fences and where it wanders without restriction wherever it wishes. Man also aspires to this freedom, not only physically, but so that his spirit is free to explore without restraint. Being subject to Satan’s lies, however, he is deceived into thinking that his freedom consists in being able to sin without hindrance, and he therefore tenaciously defends this freedom while all the time being trapped in the devil’s paddock. But God wishes to give him true freedom, setting him free from ignorance and enslaving lusts, and allowing him to explore the infinite open space of the knowledge of God.
The wild ass does not take any notice of man’s attempts to enclose it or steer it into confinement, but looks instinctively to his Creator and feeds on the pastures that he has given it to enjoy. It does not need permission from man to graze for it has received all the permission it needs by virtue of being created with the appetites that it possesses. It exercises these in perfect contentment and gives thanks to God by the exercise of these God-given instincts.
When God saw everything that he had made and it was very good, he understood perfectly what he had made. God is an artist and a sculptor, a writer and a poet, an architect and a builder. He designed the various creatures to express various values that were beautiful and noble, and the description ‘very good’ covers a multitude of good things that were present in his workmanship. This passage brings us God’s own evaluation of his world and of the admirable qualities that he placed in some of his creatures, qualities that he regards as worthy of appreciation. God’s descriptions are full of feeling and rise high above a mere functional description, for he sees what is especially of interest to mankind, who possesses the ability to appreciate God’s skill, craftsmanship, and purpose, at a level high above the merely mechanical. An animal will stare at a painting and perceive only a shiny or a rough surface, but a human being can immediately detect an idea in the artist’s mind. Job can understand these higher things in creation and can be lifted up by them because he has received a mind capable of sharing thoughts with his Creator, and especially because he sees with the eye of faith, for faith lifts him up to the highest possible appreciation of the natural world around him, attributing the world to the hand of his all-wise Creator and not to blind forces. Creation is truly a medium of communication from God to man, in which he writes in poetic lines his own glorious attributes reflected in his work.
God’s words would have had an effect on Job which not only corrected him for all his errors but enabled him to let go of those errors easily because he possessed a treasure in heaven far greater than anything he could have on earth. They would have so exalted the Lord in his eyes, so that he was filled with joy at possessing such a great God and could happily accept correction from him. When we encourage one another, we cannot do better than to set each other’s eyes on our eternal inheritance.