Teks -- Job 39:1 (NET)

39:1 “Are you acquainted with the way the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch as the wild deer give birth to their young?

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per frasa)

JFB: Job 39:1

(Job 39:1-30)

Even wild beasts, cut off from all care of man, are cared for by God at their seasons of greatest need. Their instinct comes direct from God and guides them to help themselves in parturition; the very time when the herdsman is most anxious for his herds.

JFB: Job 39:1 - wild goats

Ibex (Psa 104:18; 1Sa 24:2).

JFB: Job 39:1 - hinds

Fawns; most timid and defenseless animals, yet cared for by God.

Clarke: Job 39:1 - Knowest thou the time

Knowest thou the time - To know time, etc., only, was easy, and has nothing extraordinary in it; but the meaning of these questions is, to know the circumstances, which have something peculiarly expressive of God’ s providence, and make the questions proper in this place. Pliny observes, that the hind with young is by instinct directed to a certain herb, named seselis, which facilitates the birth. Thunder, also, which looks like the more immediate hand of Providence, has the same effect. Psa 29:9 : "The Voice of the Lord maketh the Hinds to Calve."See Dr. Young. What is called the wild goat, יעל yael , from עלה alah , to ascend, go or mount up, is generally understood to be the ibex or mountain goat, called yael, from the wonderful manner in which it mounts to the tops of the highest rocks. It is certain, says Johnston, there is no crag of the mountains so high, prominent or steep, but this animal will mount it in a number of leaps, provided only it be rough, and have protuberances large enough to receive its hoofs in leaping. This animal is indigenous to Arabia, is of amazing strength and agility, and considerably larger than the common goat. Its horns are very long, and often bend back over the whole body of the animal; and it is said to throw itself from the tops of rocks or towers, and light upon its horns, without receiving any damage. It goes five months with young

Clarke: Job 39:1 - When the hinds do calve?

When the hinds do calve? - The hind is the female of the stag, or cervus elaphus , and goes eight months with young. They live to thirty-five or forty years. Incredible longevity has been attributed to some stags. One was taken by Charles VI., in the forest of Senlis, about whose neck was a collar with this inscription, Caesar hoc mihi donavit , which led some to believe that this animal had lived from the days of some one of the twelve Caesars, emperors of Rome. I have seen the following form of this inscription: -

Tempore quo Caesar Roma dominatus in alt

Aureolo jussit collum signare monili

Nehemiah depascentem quisquis me gramina laedat

Caesaris heu! caussa periturae parcere vitae

Which has been long public in the old English ballad strain, thus: -

"When Julius Caesar reigned king

About my neck he put this ring

That whosoever should me tak

Would save my life for Caesar’ s sake.

Aristotle mentions the longevity of the stag, but thinks it fabulous.

TSK: Job 39:1 - the wild // when

the wild : 1Sa 24:2; Psa 104:18

when : Psa 29:9; Jer 14:5

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per Ayat)

Poole: Job 39:1 - Knowest thou the time // The wild goats of the rock // Bring forth // When the hinds do calve

Knowest thou the time that thou mayst then go to them, and afford them thy help in their hard work?

The wild goats of the rock which dwell in high and steep rocks, where no man can come. See 1Sa 24:2 Psa 104:18 .

Bring forth which they do with great difficulty, as is implied, Psa 29:9 , and noted by philosophers, wherein they have no assistance from men, but only from God.

When the hinds do calve when God by his secret instinct directs them to a certain herb called seseli , which, as naturalists report, doth hasten and help forward their birth.

Haydock: Job 39:1 - Goats

Goats ( Ibex. Hebrew Yahale.; Haydock) frequent rocks, and places which are almost inaccessible to man. (Calmet)

Gill: Job 39:1 - Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth // or canst thou mark the time when the hinds do calve

Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth?.... Which creatures are so called, because they dwell among the rocks ^d and run upon them; and though their heads are loaded with a vast burden of horns upon them, yet can so poise themselves, as with the greatest swiftness, to leap from mountain to mountain, as Pliny says ^e: and if they bring forth their young in the rocks, as Olympiodorus asserts, and which is not improbable, it is not to be wondered, that the time of their bringing forth should not be known by men, to whom the rocks they run upon are inaccessible;

or canst thou mark the time when the hinds do calve? that is, precisely and exactly, and so as to direct, order, and manage, and bring it about, as the Lord does: and it is wonderful that they should calve, and not cast their young before their time, when they are continually in flight and fright, through men or wild beasts, and are almost always running and leaping about; and often scared with thunder, which hastens birth, Psa 29:9; otherwise the time of their bringing forth in general is known by men, as will be observed in Job 39:2.