Who Set the Wild Donkey Free?
The questioning runs on through wild creatures that need no human management: mountain goats calving alone, the donkey who scorns the city, the ostrich who forgets her eggs, the horse who laughs at fear, the eagle on his crag. None of it serves Job's convenience.
39 1"Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch over the does when they give birth? 2Can you count the months they carry their young? Do you know the time they give birth? 3They crouch down and give birth; their birth pangs are over. 4Their young grow strong in the open field; they leave and do not return.
5"Who set the wild donkey free? Who untied the ropes of the swift donkey, 6to whom I gave the wilderness for a home and the salt flats for a dwelling place? 7He scorns the noise of the city and never hears a driver's shout. 8He ranges the mountains for his pasture, searching for every green thing.
9"Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night beside your feeding trough? 10Can you bind the wild ox to the furrow with ropes? Will he plow the valleys behind you? 11Will you rely on him because his strength is great? Will you trust your labor to him? 12Can you trust him to bring back your grain and gather it to your threshing floor?
13"The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but are they the feathers and plumage of a stork? 14She leaves her eggs on the ground and lets them warm in the dust, 15forgetting that a foot may crush them, or a wild animal may trample them. 16She treats her young harshly, as if they were not her own; she has no fear that her labor was in vain, 17because I made her forget wisdom and gave her no share in understanding. 18Yet when she takes off running, she laughs at the horse and its rider.
19"Do you give the horse his strength? Do you clothe his neck with a flowing mane? 20Do you make him leap like a locust? His proud snorting strikes terror. 21He paws in the valley and rejoices in his strength; he charges into battle. 22He laughs at fear and is not terrified; he does not shrink back from the sword. 23The quiver rattles against him, the flashing spear and the javelin. 24With fierce, raging excitement he devours the ground; he cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. 25At the blast of the trumpet he says, 'Aha!' He catches the scent of battle from afar, the thunder of the commanders and the war cry.
26"Is it by your understanding that the hawk takes flight and spreads his wings toward the south? 27Is it at your command that the eagle soars and builds his nest on high? 28He lives on the cliff and makes his home there, on the rocky crag, his stronghold. 29From there he searches out his food; his eyes spot it from far away. 30His young ones feast on blood, and wherever the slain are, there he is."
