The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 617

him, but his •vage nature would render it uderlt&Dcliq, There i1 an Arab proverb- impot1sible to use him for them. " Ae stupid ae an "OBtrioh "-whioh the Ver. IS.--Gavt!Bt thou the goodly win8'1 Arabs jUBtit'y on five grounds: (1) The 11.11.to 1;he peuoalo , rather, tlae '11ing of tM ostrich, they aa.y, will ewellow iron, stones, oetriM (literally, o/ o•frir'-) u ~ , a t ; i.e. leaden hnllete, and other things, which a thing thet it !?lories in. The ellusion is, injure and sometimes prove fatal to It. perhepe, to the flepping of it& wings by the (2) When hunted, it thrusts its head into oatrich, ee it hurriee over the ground, which a bush, and imagines that the hunter does i8 110m,·tbing like thet of e oock before crow- not see it. (3) It allowa itself to be capture,l ing or efter beating an antagonist. Or by transparent deviocs. (4) It neglects its win8'I and feathen nnto the o■trioh 1 This egga. ( 5) Its head is emo.11, and contains clause is very obscure, but mey perhaps but a email quantity of brains. To these mean. Are her /ea.then and plumnge lrindly? grounds I may add that in the South-African ( see the Revised Vennon) ; i.e. does she use ostrioh-fe.rms, the birds allow themselves to them for the 11arne kindly purpose as other be oonfined within e. oertain spaoe by a fence birds-to warru her 12ggs, end forward the of sticks and string raised about a foot from pro("CSS of hakhing th<•m? the ground. They seem to think that they Ver. 14.-Which leaveth her eggs in the oo.nnot step over it. arth, and warmeth them in dust. The best Ver. 18.-What time ■he lifteth up herself authorities tell us that in tropics.I oountries 011 high, 1he ■oometh the horse and his ostriches, having scratched a hole in the rider. The o.;trich sometimes tries to elude sand, and deposited their eggs in it, cover pursuit by crouching and hiding behind the eggs over with a layer of aa.nd, some- hillocks or in hollows, making itself as time,; 8.6 much as a foot in thiokness, and, little conspicuous as possible; but, when leaving them during the daytime to be kept these attempts fail, and it ate.rte off to run warm by the heat of the sun, only incubate in the open, then it " lifts itself up" to its at night. It is evidently this habit of the full elevation. beats the air with its wings, bird that is here o.lluded to. That in oooler e.nd sooure along at a pace that no horse can couutries ostriches do not do this is not to equal. The Greeks with Xenophon, though the point. The habit was known in Job's well mounted, failed to catoh e. single ostrich time, and wru; so noticeable as to characterize (' A.nab.,' i. 5. § 3). the bird to a large extent. Ver. 19.-B:aat thou given the horae Ver. 15.-Alld forgetteth that the fool streqth 1 (comp. Pa. cxlvii. 10). Gehurah may oraah them, or that the wild beast may means, however, more than "strength." It break them. Where the eggs are covered includes courage and o.11 martial excellenoe. by a layer of mnd a foot thiok, this danger Kut thou clothed his 11eck with thuder I u not incurred. But when the eggs are Many objections have been taken to this numerowi-and they are sometimes as many expression; and endeavours have been made u thirty-they are apt to be very poorly to show that the word 11Sed (;ir,iJ,"J) does not covered, and the result.a follow which are mean "thunder,'' but " a tremulous motion," described in the text. " quivering muscles o.nd e. tossing mane,'' or Ver. 16.-Bhe ie hardened apinat her else "scom," "indignation." But as Cl!''.:' yc,ang ones, u though they were not hers. This is a deduction from what has preceded. altlHl!f& means "thunder" (eh. xxvi. H; and discloses no new fact. Recent careful xxxiL 25; Ps. l.uvii. 19; lxxxi. 8; civ. 7; observation of the habits of the ostrich Iso.. :ui.x. 6), it seems unlikely that ;ic)li indicates that the pa.rental inmnct is not menns anything else. To the objection tho.t waJ1ting, though it may be wea.ker than in the metaphor is "incoogruous" (Professor most birdB. Both the maJe and the female Lee), it would appear to be enough to reply incubate at night, and, when the nest is that one of our greatest prose-poets has seen approached by the hunter, the parent bird in it peculie.r fitness. "So true every way," or bi..l'ds will leave it, and try to draw him says Ca.rlyle, on the passage: " true eyesight away from it by r1mning on in frout of him, and vision for all things; material things, or feigning to attack him, much as peewit.s not less than spiritual ; • the hore&-Ho.st do in our own country. Ker labour ill in thou clothed his neck with thundet- r'" Tain without .fee.r; or, though her labour ia (' Lectures on Heroes,' p. 78). in tlliin, sh£ u toithw.t fear (sec the Revised Ver. 20.-Ce.Dlt thou make him afraid as Veroion); i.e. though she is often disap- a grauhopper 1 rather, Canst thou malte him pointed of Ler immediate hope of offspring, leap /ori/Jard IUl a graaahopper 1 The bound through her eggs being crushed and de- with which a war-horse rushes to battlu Btroyed, yet she grows no wiser, she does not seems intended. The glory of his nostrils fdl.r for the fnture. is terrible. Wben the we.r-horse snorts, men Ver. 17.-:a-Dle God hath deprind her tremble (see Jer. viii. 16, "The snorting of ., wiaciom, uither hath he imparted to her his horses wu heard frow Dan ; the whol@ 0tt. xt.xtx, 1-30,] THE IlOOK OF JOB. 633