Job 39:27

Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Job 39:27-28. Doth the eagle mount up at thy command? — Fly directly upward till she be out of thy sight, which no other bird can do; and make her nest on high — In the highest and inaccessible rocks: compare Jeremiah 49:16; Obadiah 1:4. She dwelleth upon the crag of the rock — Which she doth partly for the security of herself and her young; and partly that she may thence have the better prospect to discern her prey, as it follows.

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

Doth the eagle mount up at thy command? - Margin, as in Hebrew, "by thy mouth." The meaning is, that Job had not power to direct or order the eagle in his lofty flight. The eagle has always been celebrated for the height to which it ascends. When Ramond had reached the summit of Mount Perdu, the highest of the Pyrenees, he perceived no living creature but an eagle which passed above him, flying with inconceivable rapidity in direct opposition to a furious wind. "Edin. Ency." "Of all animals, the eagle flies highest; and from thence the ancients have given him the epithet of "the bird of heaven." "Goldsmith." What is particularly worth remarking here is, the accuracy with which the descriptions in Job are made. If these are any indications of the progress of the knowledge of Natural History, that science could not have been then in its infancy. Just the things are adverted to here which all the investigations of subsequent ages have shown to characterize the classes of the feathered creation referred to.

And make her nest on high - "The nest of the eagle is usually built in the most inaccessible cliff of the rock, and often shielded from the weather by some jutting crag that hangs over it." "Goldsmith." "It is usually placed horizontally, in the hollow or fissure, of some high and abrupt rock, and is constructed of sticks of five or six feet in length, interlaced with pliant twigs, and covered with layers of rushes, heath, or moss. Unless destroyed by some accident, it is supposed to suffice, with occasional repairs, for the same couple during their lives." "Edin. Ency."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

27. eagle—It flies highest of all birds: thence called "the bird of heaven."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Mount up; fly directly upward, till she be out of thy sight; which no other bird can do.

On high; in the highest and inaccessible rocks. Compare Jeremiah 49:16 Obadiah 1:4.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Doth the eagle mount up at thy command,.... No; but by an instinct which God has placed in it, and a capacity he has given it above all other birds. They take a circuit in their flight, and bend about before they soar aloft: but the eagle steers its course directly upwards towards heaven, till out of sight; and, as Apuleius says (p), up to the clouds, where it rains and snows, and beyond which there is no place for thunder and lightning;

and make her nest on high? so the philosopher says (q); eagles make their nests not in plains, but in high places, especially in cragged rocks, as in Job 39:28.

(p) Florida 1.((q) Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 9. c. 32.

Geneva Study Bible

Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27–30. The eagle.

Is it at Job’s command that the eagle fixes her habitation fearlessly on the dizzy crag? Did he bestow on her her penetrating vision, which scans the wide expanse of country and pierces into the deep ravine? or did he endow her with her terrible instincts, that shew themselves at once in her young, which “suck up blood”?

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - Doth the eagle mount up at thy command? The enumeration of natural marvels ends with the eagle, the monarch of birds, as it began with the lion, the king of beasts (Job 38:39). The power of the eagle to "mount up," notwithstanding its great size and weight, is very surprising. The species intended in this place is probably the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) or else the imperial eagle (Aquila heliaca)' which arc both of them common in Syria and Mesopotamia. And make her nest on high? The nests of eagles are almost always built on lofty, generally on inaccessible, rocks. Aristotle says, Ποιοῦνται δεαὐτὰς (sc, τὰς νεοττίας), οὐκ ἐν πεδινοῖς τόποις ἀλλ ἐν ὑψηκοῖς μάλιστα μὲν καὶ ἐν πέτραις ἀποκρήμνοις (comp. Jeremiah 49:16). Job 39:27

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

26 Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom,

Doth it spread its wings towards the south?

27 Or is it at thy command that the eagle soareth aloft,

And buildeth its nest on high?

28 It inhabiteth the rock, and buildeth its nest

Upon the crag of the rock and fastness.

29 From thence it seeketh food,

Its eyes see afar off.

30 And its young ones suck up blood;

And where the slain are, there is it.

The ancient versions are unanimous in testifying that, according to the signification of the root, נץ signifies the hawk (which is significant in the Hieroglyphics): the soaring one, the high-flyer (comp. Arab. nṣṣ, to rise, struggle forwards, and Arab. nḍḍ, to raise the wings for flight). The Hiph. יאבר- (jussive form in the question, as Job 13:27) might signify: to get feathers, plumescere (Targ., Jer.), but that gives a tame question; wherefore Gregory understands the plumescit of the Vulgate of moulting, for which purpose the hawk seeks the sunny side. But האביר alone, by itself, cannot signify "to get new feathers;" moreover, an annual moulting is common to all birds, and prominence is alone given to the new feathering of the eagle in the Old Testament, Psalm 103:5; Micah 1:16, comp. Isaiah 40:31 (lxx πτεροφυήσουσιν ὡς ἀετοί).

(Note: Less unfavourable to this rendering is the following, that אברה signifies the long feathers, and אבר the wing that is composed of them (perhaps, since the Talm. אברים signifies wings and limbs, artus, from אבר equals הבר, Arab. hbr, to divide, furnish with joints), although נוצה (from נצה, to fly) is the more general designation of the feathers of birds.)

Thus, then, the point of the question will lie in לתימן: the hawk is a bird of passage, God has endowed it with instinct to migrate to the south as the winter season is approaching.

In Job 39:27 the circle of the native figures taken from animal life, which began with the lion, the king of quadrupeds, is now closed with the eagle, the king of birds. It is called נשׁר, from נשׁר, Arab. nsr, vellere; as also vultur (by virtue of a strong power of assimilation equals vultor) is derived from vellere, - a common name of the golden eagle, the lamb's vulture, the carrion-kite (Cathartes percnopterus), and indeed also of other kinds of kites and falcons. There is nothing to prevent our understanding the eagle κατ ̓ εξοχήν, viz., the golden eagle (Aquila chrysatos), in the present passage; for even to this, corpses, though not already putrified, are a welcome prey. In Job 39:27 we must translate either: and is it at thy command that ... ? or: is it so that (as in הכי) at thy command ... ? The former is more natural here. מצוּדה, Job 39:28, signifies prop. specula (from צוּד, to spy); then, however, as Arab. masâd (referred by the original lexicons to masada), the high hill, and the mountain-top. The rare form יעלעוּ, for which Ges., Olsh., and others wish to read לעלעוּ or ילעלעוּ (from לוּע, deglutire), is to be derived from עלע, a likewise secondary form out of עלעל (from עוּל, to suck, to give suck),

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