Job 39:9

39:1-30 God inquires of Job concerning several animals. - In these questions the Lord continued to humble Job. In this chapter several animals are spoken of, whose nature or situation particularly show the power, wisdom, and manifold works of God. The wild ass. It is better to labour and be good for something, than to ramble and be good for nothing. From the untameableness of this and other creatures, we may see, how unfit we are to give law to Providence, who cannot give law even to a wild ass's colt. The unicorn, a strong, stately, proud creature. He is able to serve, but not willing; and God challenges Job to force him to it. It is a great mercy if, where God gives strength for service, he gives a heart; it is what we should pray for, and reason ourselves into, which the brutes cannot do. Those gifts are not always the most valuable that make the finest show. Who would not rather have the voice of the nightingale, than the tail of the peacock; the eye of the eagle and her soaring wing, and the natural affection of the stork, than the beautiful feathers of the ostrich, which can never rise above the earth, and is without natural affection? The description of the war-horse helps to explain the character of presumptuous sinners. Every one turneth to his course, as the horse rushes into the battle.

When a man's heart is fully set in him to do evil, and he is carried on in a wicked way, by the violence of his appetites and passions, there is no making him fear the wrath of God, and the fatal consequences of sin. Secure sinners think themselves as safe in their sins as the eagle in her nest on high, in the clefts of the rocks; but I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord, #Jer 49:16". All these beautiful references to the works of nature, should teach us a right view of the riches of the wisdom of Him who made and sustains all things. The want of right views concerning the wisdom of God, which is ever present in all things, led Job to think and speak unworthily of Providence.

(9) The unicorn. —It is a mistake to identify this animal with the rhinoceros, as was formerly done; it is more probably the same with the buffalo, or wild ox. The most glaring form of the mistake is in Psalm 22:22 : “Thou hast heard me also from among the horns of the unicorns” The way in which the animal is here spoken of, as in analogous contrast to the domestic ox, suggests that it is not wholly dissimilar. It is familiar and homely toil that the wild ox is contemplated as being put to, in the place of tame cattle, whose work it is.

Job 39:9 . Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee — Canst thou tame him, and bring him into subjection to thy command? Or, abide by thy crib? — Will he suffer himself to be tied, or confined there all night, and kept for the work of the next day as the oxen are? Surely not. It is much disputed among the learned, whether this reem, which is the Hebrew name of the animal here spoken of, be the rhinoceros, or a certain kind of wild goat, called orix, or a kind of wild bull, which seems most probable, both from the description of it here and elsewhere in Scripture. Schultens inclines to this opinion, thinking it to be the Arabian buffalo of the bull species, but absolutely untameable, and which the Arabians frequently hunt. See the note on Numbers 23:22 .

9 . will the unicorn ] Rather, the wild ox (Heb. reém , or, rém ). From the allusions to this creature in Scripture two things may be inferred with some certainty, (1) that the animal had two horns: Deuteronomy 33:17 “his horns are like the horns of an unicorn”; comp. Numbers 23:22 ; Numbers 24:8 (where for “strength” some such words as “towering horns” should be read, see on ch. Job 22:25 ), Psalm 22:21 ; and (2) that the animal was considered to belong to the ox tribe. This appears from the present passage, where it is contrasted with the domestic ox, the labours of which it was fitted to perform if its disposition had not been untameable; and from two other passages, in both of which it is brought into connexion with the ox: Psalm 29:6 , “He maketh them to skip like a calf , Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn”, and Isaiah 34:7 , “And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls.” The reém was probably either the animal called by the Germans Auerochs ( Bos primigenius ) or “primitive ox,” now extinct all over the world, or the bison, which still lingers in scanty numbers in one or two parts. The Arabs give the name ri’m to the white antelope. The translation “unicorn” came from the Sept. μονοκέρως. A one-horned animal, though abundantly testified to by travellers, probably exists only in the imagination.

Jerome adheres to the general “unicorns” in Psalm 22:21 and Isaiah 34:7 , but usually he renders “rhinoceros,” the nearest approach to a “unicorn” that exists in the world of reality. “The Unicorne, as Lewes Vartinian testifieth, who saw two of them in the towne of Mecha, is of the height of a yoong horse or colt of 30 moneths old, hee hath the head of a Hart, and in his forehead he hath a sharpe pointed home three cubites long … His horne is of a merueilous greate force and vertue against venome and poyson” (see Wright, Bible Word-Book ). The point of the passage lies not so much in the terrible attributes of the creature himself, as in the contrast between him and the tame ox, which he externally resembled. He was fitted for all the labour performed by the domestic animal, but was wild and untameable. Man uses the one, let him lay his hand upon the other and subdue him to his service! Who is the author of this strange diversity of disposition in creatures so like in outward form? 9–12 . The Wild ox.

Verse 9. - Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? This is an unfortunate translation, since there is no word etymologicallly correspondent to "unicorn" in the original. The word used is rem or reyrn ; and the rem is distinctly said in Deuteronomy 33:17 to have "horns." All that is said of the rim in Scripture points to some species of wild cattle, and recent critics are almost universally agreed thus far at any rate. Assyrian investigation carries us a step further. It is found that the wild bull so often represented on the monuments as hunted by the Ninevite monarchs was known to the Assyrians by the name of rimu or rim . Careful examination of the sculptures has resulted in the identification of this animal with Bee primi-genius an extinct species, probably identical with the urns of the Romans, which Caesar saw in Gaul, and of which he has left a description. "These uri," he says, "are scarcely less than elephants in size, but in their nature, colour, and form are bulls. Great is their strength, and great their speed; nor do they spare man nor beast, when once they have caught sight of him. ... Even when they are young, they cannot be habituated to man and made tractable. The size and shape of their horns are very different from those of our own oxen" ('De Bell. Gall.,' 6:28). Job 39:9

9. unicorn—Pliny [Natural History, 8.21], mentions such an animal; its figure is found depicted in the ruins of Persepolis. The Hebrew reem conveys the idea of loftiness and power (compare Ramah; Indian, Ram; Latin, Roma). The rhinoceros was perhaps the original type of the unicorn. The Arab rim is a two-horned animal. Sometimes "unicorn" or reem is a mere poetical symbol or abstraction; but the buffalo is the animal referred to here, from the contrast to the tame ox, used in ploughing (Job 39:10, 12). abide—literally, "pass the night." crib—(Isa 1:3).

It is much disputed among the learned, but is not needful to be known by others, whether there be or ever was such a creature as we call the unicorn; or whether this reem , which is the Hebrew name of it, be the rhinoceros , as some would have it; or a certain kind of wild goat, called oryx , which is very tall, and strong, and untractable; or one of that kind of wild oxen or bulls called uri ; which may seem most probable, both from the description of this creature here and elsewhere in Scripture, which exactly agrees with its description given by other authors; and from the description of his work in this place, which must in all reason be agreeable to creatures of that general kind; and from the conjunction of this creature with bullocks in Scripture, Deu 33:17 ; and especially Isaiah 34:6,7 , where having put lambs , and goats , and rams together, Job 39:6 , as creatures of the same or very like sort, he mentions bullocks , and bulls , and reems , Job 39:7 , as belonging to the same general sort of creatures. But this I shall not positively determine here. He that would know more, may see what the reverend and learned Mr. Caryl hath upon this text out of Boetius and others, and my Latin Synopsis on Numbers 23:22 . Be willing to serve thee; canst thou tame him, and bring him into subjection to thy command? Abide by thy crib; will he suffer himself to be tied or confined there all night, and to be reserved to the work of the next day, as the oxen do? Surely no.

Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee? - In the previous part of the argument, God had appealed to the lion, the raven, the goats of the rock, the hind, and the wild ass; and the idea was, that in the instincts of each of these classes of animals, there was some special proof of wisdom. He now turns to another class of the animal creation in proof of his own supremacy and power, and lays the argument in the great strength and in the independence of the animal, and in the fact that man had not been able to subject his great strength to the purposes of husbandry. In regard to the animal here referred to, there has been great diversity of opinion among interpreters, nor is there as yet any one prevailing sentiment. Jerome renders it "rhinoceros;" the Septuagint, μονόκερως monokerōs, the "unicorn;" the Chaldee and the Syraic retain the Hebrew word; Gesenius, Herder, Umbreit, and Noyes, render it the "buffalo;" Schultens, "alticornem;" Luther and Coverdale, the "unicorn;" Rosenmuller, the "onyx," a large and fierce species of the antelope; Calmet supposes that the rhinoceros is intended; and Prof. Robinson, in an extended appendage to the article of Calmet (art. Unicorn), has endeavored to show that the wild buffalo is intended. Bochart, also, in a long and learned argument, has endeavored to show; that the rhinoceros cannot be meant. Hieroz. P. i. Lib. iii. chapter xxvi. He maintains that a species of antelope is referred to, the "rim" of the Arabs.