BDS

Despite our scientific advances, our understanding of animals has not necessarily advanced since the days of Job. The insight with which the “Voice from the Whirlwind� sees animals and their character remains brilliant.

This shouldn’t really surprise us. Science is only one method of understanding. If we know more about biology than the authors of Job, they knew more than we about actually living with and dealing with animals. They were, after all, shepherds and goatherds, who lived closer to nature than we do.

The Ostrich (for example):

“…leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the dust,
And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them.
She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers: her labour is in vain without fear.�

Here the ostrich is a metaphor for Job, who also “labours in vain without fear.� Such, apparently, is God’s desire for all of his creatures.

I particularly like the description of the warhorse. God is scolding Job, and says:

“Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?
Can’st thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? The glory of his nostrils is terrible.
He paweth the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed men.
He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted; neither turneth he back from the sword.
The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield.
He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage: neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet.
He saith among the trumpets, Ha Ha; and smelleth the battle from afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shouting.�

This is great stuff. It shows an understanding of horses we moderns have almost lost. The warhorse lives for his work, in battle, just as the great jumper loves the show ring, or Secretariat loved the track. He is “afraid as a grasshopper�, but “smelleth the battle from afar� and crieth, “Ha Ha�.

In Greek, “cynic� means “dog�. Diogenes and the cynics didn’t believe anything that a dog wouldn’t believe. In a sense, the cynic, then, is not someone who doesn’t care, but someone who cares as Job’s Warhorse cares – about some sort of essential, wordless verities, embodied in their very nature, and ineffable.

Job was a morally upright man. But he needed to learn piety. The ostrich's vain labors, the sheepdog's attentiveness to his task, and warhorse's courage at the smell of battle.....

BDS

p.s. Some of the above post borrowed from Vicki Hearne's excellent book "Animal Happiness".

Unbeliever

Actually, ostrich's are very attentive parents. If their labor was "in vain" then they'd've gone extinct by now!


I don't think it's saying that warhorses are afraid, but that Job can't make them afraid. I could be wrong about that, since other verses seem to be saying that "he" is such or so, but that job can't make him that way.

Anat

Job 42:7-8 "And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: 'My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends; for ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job hath. Now therefore, take unto you seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt-offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept, that I do not unto you aught unseemly; for ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.'"

God admits that Job had spoken 'the thing that is right'. Job didn't have to learn anything but that God reserves to himself the right to be arbitrary. What piety did Job have to learn, when he was of the habit of making sacrifices in the name of his children just in case they blasphemed in their hearts?