To conclude this portion of his interrogation of Job, the Lord asks him, if it were by his (Job’s) wisdom that the hawk takes flight (Job 39:26). The hawk is a very swift bird of prey, and, as a carnivore was considered unclean in the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 11:13, 16). However, the ancients celebrated its swiftness. Men stood in awe of the hawk’s great ability to move effortlessly and so speedily across the sky up to our modern day, when our engineered vehicles began to exceed the hawk’s great speed. Then the Lord mentioned the hawk’s flight to the south, its sense to migrate to a warmer climate during the winter months, and he asked Job, if it were by Job’s wisdom that the hawk did so (Job 39:26).
Finally, as he had begun with the king of beasts (Job 38:39-40), the Lord ends his use of the creatures he made with his mention of the king of birds, the eagle. The appearance of the eagle is even used to partially describe the Lord’s throne (Ezekiel 1:10; 10:14). The eagle uses its wings to carry its young to safety in the face of a predator, which is the manner in which the Lord used to describe his own efforts in bringing Israel our of bondage in Egypt (Deuteronomy 32:11; Exodus 19:4). So, the Lord asks Job, if it was by his (Job’s) command that the eagle “mounts up” (H1361), meaning soars so high in the heavens (Job 39:27), or did he tell it to make its nest in such inaccessible places, high in the cliffs of mountains, choosing it as a stronghold from which she could observe her prey (Job 39:28)?
Was it you, Job, who gave the eagle its unique ability of sight, able to observe its prey from almost unimaginable distances? Instead of using its inferior ability of scent, which is more adept in most other carnivores, was it you who commanded the eagle to rely upon its keen ability of sight over great distances to surprise and overtake its prey (Job 39:29). It is said of the Lord that his eyes are too pure to behold iniquity (Habakkuk 1:13) and that he is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24-27; Hebrews 12:27, 29), and, similarly the young eagle devours the blood of its prey, and wherever corruption is there the eagle may be found (Job 39:30; cp. Matthew 24:28).
Thus, the Lord ended his first interrogation of Job by pointing to six mammals and four birds: the fearful and the helpless, the fierce and the strong, the strange, the wild, all creations of God, all invented by him, but all fitting into his divine and mysterious plan. Was Job capable of discerning it wholly? Is any man so talented and gifted that he could discern the whole of the wisdom it has taken to bring all these beasts together on our planet? Yet, here they are, and the Lord cares for all of them! What kind of mind and heart is capable and willing to do that?
The Lord has placed mankind in authority over all the beasts he has created (Genesis 1:26), yet he is more interested in decorating his walls with trophies of God’s creatures, than he is in caring for them, which more or less is indicative of his foresight and appreciation of things of value. So, the Lord’s point in bringing Job’s attention to these things, on the one hand expresses the science of creating an environment for man to live in, and one that replenishes itself without his care (Job 38:1-38). On the other hand, the Lord wants Job to appreciate the distinctiveness of the beasts he has created, which reproduce, feed upon the land and one another, and in the vast scheme of things, not only provide food for mankind, but they help keep man’s environment clean and disease free! Who has done all this? More to the point, what kind of audacity does it take for someone like Job to question what the Lord does? Why should he believe he has the right to do so, or believe he has the wisdom to present a convincing argument against the Lord doings?
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