What is called the wild goat, l[y yael, from hl[ alah, to ascend, go or mount up, is generally understood to be the ibex or mountain goat, called yael, from the wonderful manner in which it mounts to the tops of the highest rocks. It is certain, says Johnston, there is no crag of the mountains so high, prominent or steep, but this animal will mount it in a number of leaps, provided only it be rough, and have protuberances large enough to receive its hoofs in leaping. This animal is indigenous to Arabia, is of amazing strength and agility, and considerably larger than the common goat. Its horns are very long, and often bend back over the whole body of the animal; and it is said to throw itself from the tops of rocks or towers, and light upon its horns, without receiving any damage. It goes five months with young.

When the hinds do calve? ] The hind is the female of the stag, or cervus elaphus, and goes eight months with young. They live to thirty-five or forty years. Incredible longevity has been attributed to some stags. One was taken by Charles VI., in the forest of Senlis, about whose neck was a collar with this inscription, Caesar hoc mihi donavit, which led some to believe that this animal had lived from the days of some one of the twelve Caesars, emperors of Rome. I have seen the following form of this inscription: - Tempore quo Caesar Roma dominatus in alta Aureolo jussit collum signare monili; Nehemiah depascentem quisquis me gramina laedat.

Caesaris heu! caussa periturae parcere vitae! Which has been long public in the old English ballad strain, thus: ] "When Julius Caesar reigned king, About my neck he put this ring; That whosoever should me take Would save my life for Caesar's sake." Aristotle mentions the longevity of the stag, but thinks it fabulous.

Matthew Henry Commentary

--In these questions the Lord continued to humble Job. In this chapte several animals are spoken of, whose nature or situation particularl 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 goo for nothing. From the untameableness of this and other creatures, we may see, how unfit we are to give law to Providence, who cannot giv law even to a wild ass's colt. The unicorn, a strong, stately, prou creature. He is able to serve, but not willing; and God challenges Jo to force him to it. It is a great mercy if, where God gives strengt for service, he gives a heart; it is what we should pray for, an reason ourselves into, which the brutes cannot do. Those gifts are no always the most valuable that make the finest show. Who would no 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 neve rise above the earth, and is without natural affection? The descriptio of the war-horse helps to explain the character of presumptuou 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 an passions, there is no making him fear the wrath of God, and the fata 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 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 i ever present in all things, led Job to think and speak unworthily of Providence __________________________________________________________________

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