Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible · Job Capitolo 39

CHAP. XXXIX.

Of the wild goats and hinds; of the wild ass; the unicorn, the peacock, stork, and ostrich; the horse, the hawk, and the eagle.

Before Christ 1645.

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Job 39:2. Canst thou number the months, &c.— The meaning of these questions is, "Knowest thou the time and circumstances of their bringing forth?" For, to know the time only was easy, and had nothing in it extraordinary; but the circumstances had something peculiarly expressive of God's providence, which makes the question proper in this place. Pliny observes, that the hind with young is by instinct directed to a certain herb called seselis, which facilitates the birth. Thunder also, which looks like the more immediate hand of Providence, has the same effect. Dr. Young.

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Job 39:3. They bow themselves— The manuscripts mark the two last verbs with a circle. Houbigant's version runs thus: They bow themselves; they burst with their pains; they cast forth their young. But I cannot help disagreeing with the learned father of the Oratory; as the passage, according to our version, appears to me much more emphatical. Every reader of taste must discern peculiar strength and beauty in the expression, They cast out their sorrows. Houbigant renders the 4th verse, [Knowest thou] how their young ones grow up, increase in the fields, and, once departing, return to them no more?—Whose house, in the 6th verse, would more properly be rendered whose habitation; and the barren land might be better rendered the thicket. The word מלחה melechah, signifies a kind of shrub; the covert, probably, in which these animals delight. See Parkhurst on the word מלח melach, 4.

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Job 39:7. The multitude of the city— Or, The thronged city.

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Job 39:9. Will the unicorn, &c.— See Numbers 24:8. Schultens is of opinion, that the animal here mentioned is the Arabian buffaloe, of the bull species, but absolutely untameable, and which the Arabians frequently hunt. See the authorities which this learned writer has produced, in his note on the place.

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Job 39:26. Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom? &c.— Thuanus, De Re Accip. mentions a hawk which flew from London to Paris in a night; and it was on account of its remarkable swiftness that the Egyptians made it their hieroglyphic for the wind.

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