Job 39:3

They bow themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast out their sorrows.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Job 39:3. They bow themselves — Being taught by a divine instinct to put themselves into such a posture as may be most fit for their safe and easy bringing forth. They bring forth their young ones — Hebrew, תפלחנה, tephallachnah, dissecant, discindunt, scilicet matricem, aut ventrem ad pullos edendos. — Buxdorf. They tear, or rend, themselves asunder to bring forth their young. The word is used, Proverbs 7:23, of a dart striking through and dividing the liver, and may here be considered as signifying, that the wild goats and hinds bring forth their young with as much pain as if a dart pierced them through. They cast out their sorrows — Partus suos, their births; LXX., ωδινας αυτων, the pains, or sorrows, of bringing forth; that is, their young ones and their sorrows together.

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

They bow themselves - literally, they curve or bend themselves; that is, they draw their limbs together.

They cast out their sorrows - That is, they cast forth the offspring of their pains, or the young which cause their pains. The idea seems to be, that they do this without any of the care and attention which shepherds are obliged to show to their flocks at such seasons. They do it when God only guards them; when they are in the wilderness or on the rocks far away from the abodes of man. The leading thought in all this seems to be, that the tender care of God was over his creatures, in the most perilous and delicate state, and that all this was exercised where man could have no access to them, and could not even observe them.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. bow themselves—in parturition; bend on their knees (1Sa 4:19).

bring forth—literally, "cause their young to cleave the womb and break forth."

sorrows—their young ones, the cause of their momentary pains.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

They bow themselves; being taught by a Divine instinct to dispose themselves in such a posture as may be fittest for their safe and easy bringing forth.

They bring forth their young ones, to wit, with great pain, being almost torn or rent asunder with the birth, as the word signifies; or, without any of that help which tame beasts oft have.

Their sorrows, i.e. their young ones, and their sorrows together. Or, though (which particle is oft understood) they remit or put away their sorrows, i.e. though instead of cherishing and furthering their sorrows, which for their own ease and safety they should do, they foolishly hinder them, and so increase their own danger; yet by God’s good providence to them they are enabled to bring forth, as was now said.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

They bow themselves,.... That they may bring forth their young with greater ease and more safety: for it seems the hinds bring forth their young with great difficulty; and there are provisions in nature made to lessen it; as thunder, before observed, which causes them to bring forth the sooner; and there is an herb called "seselis", which it is said (i) they feed upon before birth, to make it the easier; as well as they use that, and another called "aros", after the birth, to ease them of their later pains;

they bring forth their young ones; renting and cleaving asunder the membrane, as the word signifies, in which their young is wrapped;

they cast out their sorrows; either their young, which they bring forth in pains and which then cease; or the secundines, or afterbirth, in which the young is wrapped, and which the philosopher says (k) they eat, and is supposed to be medical to them. None but a woman seems to bring forth with more pain than this creature; and a wife is compared to it, Proverbs 5:19.

(i) Cicero de Natura Deoram, l. 2. Plin. Nat. Hist. c. 8. 32. Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 9. c. 5. (k) Aristot. ib.

Geneva Study Bible

They bow themselves, they {e} bring forth their young ones, they cast out their sorrows.

(e) They bring forth with great difficulty.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. cast out their sorrows] That is, their pains; with the birth of their young they are rid of their pains also. Or “their pains” may mean “their young,” by a figure common in all poetry.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - They bow themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast oat their sorrows. Parturition is a pain, even to the brute creation, though, comparatively speaking, a light one. (For the figure of speech by which that which causes pain is called pain, see AEschyl., 'Agam.,' 1. 1427; Eurip., 'Ion,' 1. 45; Herod., 5:18.) Job 39:3

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.