Job 39:4

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

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

XXXIX.

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

Benson Commentary

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.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

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.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

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.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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.

Geneva Study Bible

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

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. in good liking] i. e. in good condition, strong.

grow up with corn] Rather, they grow up in the open field.

These shy, solitary creatures, inhabiting the rocks, are without the care and help in bearing their young which domesticated creatures enjoy; yet their bearing is light and speedy; their young are robust; they grow up in the desert and rapidly provide for themselves. The care of God suffices for them.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 4. - Their young ones are in good liking; i.e. healthy and strong (comp. Daniel 1:10). They grow up with corn; rather, they grow up out of doors, or in the open air (see Professor Lee, ad loc; and Buxtorf, 'Lex. Hebr. et Chald.,' p. 87). They go forth, and return not unto them. They quit their dams early, and "go forth" to provide for themselves - an indication of health and strength. Job 39:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

1 Dost thou know the bearing time of the wild goats of the rock?

Observest thou the circles of the hinds?

2 Dost thou number the months which they fulfil,

And knowest thou the time of their bringing forth?

3 They bow down, they let their young break through,

They cast off their pains.

4 Their young ones gain strength, grow up in the desert,

They run away and do not return.

The strophe treats of the female chamois or steinbocks, ibices (perhaps including the certainly different kinds of chamois), and stags. The former are called יעלים, from יעל, Arab. w‛l (a secondary formation from עלה, Arab. ‛lâ), to mount, therefore: rock-climbers. חולל is inf. Pil.: τὸ ὠδίνειν, comp. the Pul. Job 15:7. שׁמר, to observe, exactly as Ecclesiastes 11:4; 1 Samuel 1:12; Zechariah 11:11. In Job 39:2 the question as to the expiration of the time of bearing is connected with that as to the time of bringing forth. תּספּור, plene, as Job 14:16; לדתּנה (littâna, like עת equals עדתּ) with an euphonic termination for לדתּן, as Genesis 42:36; Genesis 21:29, and also out of pause, Ruth 1:19, Ges. 91, 1, rem. 2. Instead of תּפלּחנה Olsh. wishes to read תּפלּטנה, but this (synon. תמלטנה) would be: they let slip away; the former (synon. תבקענה): they cause to divide, i.e., to break through (comp. Arab. felâh, the act of breaking through, freedom, prosperity). On כּרע, to kneel down as the posture of one in travail, vid., 1 Samuel 4:19. "They cast off their pains" is not meant of an easy working off of the after-pains (Hirz., Schlottm.), but חבל signifies in this phrase, as Schultens has first shown, meton. directly the foetus, as Arab. ḥabal, plur. ahbâl, and ὠδίν, even of a child already grown up, as being the fruit of earlier travail, e.g., in Aeschylus, Agam. 1417f.; even the like phrase, ῥίψαι ὠδῖνα equals edere foetum, is found in Euripides, Ion 45. Thus born with ease, the young animals grow rapidly to maturity (חלם, pinguescere, pubescere, whence חלום, a dream as the result of puberty, vid., Psychol. S. 282), grow in the desert (בּבּר, Targ. equals בּחוּץ, vid., i. 329, note), seek the plain, and return not again למו, sibi h. e. sui juris esse volentes (Schult.), although it might also signify ad eas, for the Hebr. is rather confused on the question of the distinction of gender, and even in חבליהם and בניהם the masc. is used ἐπικοίνως. We, however, prefer to interpret according to Job 6:19; Job 24:16. Moreover, Bochart is right: Non hic agitur de otiosa et mere speculativa cognitione, sed de ea cognitione, quae Deo propria est, qua res omnes non solum novit, sed et dirigit atque gubernat.