#674 To Know One Thing

“Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?

Do you observe the calving of the does?

2 Can you number the months that they fulfill,

and do you know the time when they give birth,

3 when they crouch, bring forth their offspring,

and are delivered of their young?

4 Their young ones become strong; they grow up in the open;

they go out and do not return to them.

5 “Who has let the wild donkey go free?

Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey,

6 to whom I have given the arid plain for his home

and the salt land for his dwelling place?

7 He scorns the tumult of the city;

he hears not the shouts of the driver.

8 He ranges the mountains as his pasture,

and he searches after every green thing.

9 “Is the wild ox willing to serve you?

Will he spend the night at your manger?

10 Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes,

or will he harrow the valleys after you?

11 Will you depend on him because his strength is great,

and will you leave to him your labor?

12 Do you have faith in him that he will return your grain

and gather it to your threshing floor?

13 “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly,

but are they the pinions and plumage of love?

14 For she leaves her eggs to the earth

and lets them be warmed on the ground,

15 forgetting that a foot may crush them

and that the wild beast may trample them.

16 She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers;

though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear,

17 because God has made her forget wisdom

and given her no share in understanding.

18 When she rouses herself to flee,

she laughs at the horse and his rider.

19 “Do you give the horse his might?

Do you clothe his neck with a mane?

20 Do you make him leap like the locust?

His majestic snorting is terrifying.

21 He paws in the valley and exults in his strength;

he goes out to meet the weapons.

22 He laughs at fear and is not dismayed;

he does not turn back from the sword.

23 Upon him rattle the quiver,

the flashing spear, and the javelin.

24 With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground;

he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.

25 When the trumpet sounds, he says ‘Aha!’

He smells the battle from afar,

the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

26 “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars

and spreads his wings toward the south?

27 Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up

and makes his nest on high?

28 On the rock he dwells and makes his home,

on the rocky crag and stronghold.

29 From there he spies out the prey;

his eyes behold it from far away.

30 His young ones suck up blood,

and where the slain are, there is he.” Job 39 ESV

There is a science, a discipline, an ology of all the sorts of observations that could be made about all the animals listed herein. I love to fish, and so I read a lot about fishing, I look at the sky and when there are no clouds we call it Blue Bird, we read into this a certain difficulty, a need for finesse. "Wind from the north, don't go forth, wind from the east, fishing the least, wind from the west, fishing the best, wind from the south blows bait in their mouth." Fishermen look at patterns in the lunar cycle, barometric pressure, before and after fronts, we are always looking, trying to understand the object of our pursuits, learning the language of nature so that we can read the water. We have even increased our ability to observe through sonar and the sharing of knowledge, but I didn't make the Bass. Job recognizes the names of the animals God mentions, so he could have some thought of them, but to know when the mountain goats give birth or how the wild donkey is able to sustain himself in such a dry and harsh environment, this would require quite a bit of dedication. God knows these things, not because He is a photographer for Nat Geo or a zoologist, but because He is the designer of life, and we are made to share and enjoy in all these things, to glorify God as all these things do. 

I admire horses, and it is amazing the relationship that some have to them, but again they should marvel at the greatness of their Creator. We play in His sand box, men take the best or sometimes not the best in strength or health, but often phenotypes that appeal to their eye, for they say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. They take these traits that they find desirable and try to lock them in to a breed or strain, but all that information was there, every atom in the universe, every combination of DNA, was not hidden from the mind of God. 

What a strange way to answer these men, from out of the whirlwind, more questions about things that are a bit nearer to them than the constellations, but can you imagine how much time it would take to observe each of these things to be the expert, and at the end you would still have questions? There is an answer here though, that men only know so far, so deep and still there is God always beyond that, knowing from eternity past that He would start this conversation, that He would reach down to men of low estate. It is actually comical and at the same time comforting, that the One Who has extended the hand of friendship, from whence we could not go or pull Him out, that He is also in control of all things, relieved, Job must be relieved. God is talking to him, he is not forgotten of God, but singled out to His glory. If God delights in all these things, has placed man in dominion over these great beasts, one may wonder why He considers man at all, but should not wonder that He does consider man, for we have the testimony of God in the flesh. 

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:


6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!


9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2: 5-11