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Job 39:8

in Job 39

He roams the mountains for pasture, searching for any green thing.

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

The range of the mountains is his pasture, And he searcheth after every green thing.

KJV

The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing.

This verse in Job 39

Commentary

11 notes on this verse
[ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE WILD ASS AS CHRIST - continued] He looketh around on the mountains of His pasture. 78. Mountains we understand to be all the lofty ones of this world, who were swollen in their hearts with earthly loftiness. But since the Lord engrains even such, when converted, into the body of His Church, and, turning them from their former pride, transforms them into His own members, these are mountains of His pasture; doubtless, because He is satisfied with the conversion of the wandering, and the humility of the proud.

This site's exposition

Who set the wild donkey free

on Job 39:5-8

The wild donkey pictures a freedom Job knew. God names Himself the one who set him free, so the animal's liberty is a provision of God. Gill notes that “the salt flats” are salt land in the Hebrew, a country men call waste and God calls a home.

This site's exposition

He roams the mountains for pasture

The word for roams is yathur, which Barnes explains as a searching out, and then what the search finds. He cites Pallas, who saw the wild donkey keep to desolate hills. Aquinas adds that the mountains give it free range for pasture.

The record, by era

The Medieval Church2 voices

A commentator

Gregory the Dialogist

Morals on the Book of Job, Book XXX · Written before 604.

proposed

He looks round on the mountains of his pasture. 64. The mountains of his pasture are the lofty contemplations of inward refreshment. For the more holy men abase themselves outwardly with contempt, the more abundantly are they supported within with the contemplation of revelations. Whence it is written; He hath disposed the ascents in his heart in the valley of tears; [Ps. 84, 6] because those, whom the valley of humility outwardly imprisons in tears, the ascent of contemplation elevates within. The mountains of pasture are also the lofty powers of angels: which therefore refresh us here by ministering and assisting, because they are fattened there with the inward dew of contemplation. And because, by the bounty of God, they protect us in every contest, they are well said to be beheld around. For we behold them present on all sides around us, by whose defence we are protected against our adversaries on every side. The mountains of pasture can be taken, still further, for the lofty sentences of Holy Scripture, of which it is said by the Psalmist; The high hills for the stags, [Ps. 104, 18] because those who know already how to make the leaps of contemplation, ascend the lofty summits of the Divine sentences, as the tops of mountains. And because the feeble cannot reach in truth to these tops, it is there rightly subjoined, the rock is a refuge for the urchins, because, namely, their understanding does not sublimely exercise the feeble, but faith alone in Christ humbly keeps them in. It follows; He searcheth after every green thing. 65. For parched in truth are all things, which, fashioned for a time, are dried up from the sweetness of the present life by the coming end, as if by the summer sun. But those are called green, which fade not away by any shortness of existence. […]

A commentator

Thomas Aquinas

Commentary on Job · Written before 1274.

proposed

The other reason is because there he wanders more freely in search of pasture, and so he says, "He ranges the mountains for his pasture," since free access to different places to find his pasture lies open to him, and he receives the pastures themselves …

The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices

A commentator

John Wesley

1703–1791

Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)

proposed

Commentary on Chapter XXXIX 4. Young ones - Notwithstanding their great weakness caused by their hard entrance into the world. Grow up - As with corn, that is, as if they were fed with corn.
The range of the mountains is his pasture,....

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

(2.) See how forward he is to engage: He goes on to meet the armed men, animated, not by the goodness of the cause, or the prospect of honour, but only by the sound of the trumpet, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting of the soldiers, which are as bellows to the fire of his innate courage, and make him spring forward with the utmost eagerness, as if he cried, Ha! ha!
3 more voices on this verse

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

A commentator

Matthew Henry

1662–1714

Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)

proposed

(2.) Having no owner, he has no feeder, nor is any provision made for him, but he must shift for himself: The range of the mountains is his pasture, and a bare pasture it is; there he searches after here and there a green thing, as he can find it and pick it up; whereas the labouring asses have green things in plenty, without their searching for them.

The Nineteenth Century2 voices

A commentator

Adam Clarke

1762–1832

Commentary on the Bible · Written before 1832.

proposed

The range of the mountains - The mountains and desert places are his peculiar places of pasture; and he lives on any thing that is green, or any kind of vegetable production.
The range of the mountains is his pasture - The word rendered “range” יתור yâthûr, means properly a “searching out,” and then that which is obtained by search. The word “range” expresses the idea with sufficient exactness. The usual range of the wild ass is the mountains. Pallas, who has given a full description of the habits of the Onager, or wild ass, states, that it, especially loves desolate hills as its abode. “Acts of the Society of Sciences of Petersburg,” for the year 1777.

The words behind it

7 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • יְת֣וּרit explores

    yeturH8446 →

  • הָרִ֣יםmountains

    harimH2022 →546 times

  • מִרְעֵ֑הוּpasture its

    mirehuH4829 →

  • וְאַחַ֖רand after

    veacharH310 →715 times

  • כָּל־every

    kol-H3605 →5413 times

  • יָר֣וֹקgreen plant

    yarokH3387 →

  • יִדְרֽוֹשׁ׃it searches

    yidrooshH1875 →164 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

The walk

3 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Job 40:15

    Look at Behemoth, which I made along with you. He feeds on grass like an ox.

    it leads to

    • Job 40:20

      The hills yield him their produce, while all the beasts of the field play nearby.

    • Psalms 104:14

      He makes the grass grow for the livestock and provides crops for man to cultivate, bringing forth food from the earth:

    • Genesis 1:24–26

      And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.

About Job

Job Hears of His Misfortunes, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
Job Hears of His Misfortunes, Gustave Doré, 1866. Public domain.
This page draws on 9 works. Open the list of works

This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XXX; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.