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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 39:19 - 39:19
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
19 Dost thou give to the horse strength?
Dost thou clothe his neck with flowing hair?
20 Dost thou cause him to leap about like the grasshopper?
The noise of his snorting is a terror!
21 He paweth the ground in the plain, and boundeth about with strength.
He advanceth to meet an armed host.
22 He laugheth at fear, and is not affrighted,
And turneth not back from the sword.
23 The quiver rattleth over him,
The glittering lance and spear.
24 With fierceness and rage he swalloweth the ground,
And standeth not still, when the trumpet soundeth.
25 He saith at every blast of the trumpet: Ha, ha!
And from afar he scenteth the battle,
The thundering of the captains and the shout of war.
After the ostrich, which, as the Arabs say, is composed of the nature of a bird and a camel, comes the horse in its heroic beauty, and impetuous lust for the battle, which is likewise an evidence of the wisdom of the Ruler of the world - a wisdom which demands the admiration of men. This passage of the book of Job, says K. Löffler, in his Gesch. des Pferdes (1863), is the oldest and most beautiful description of the horse. It may be compared to the praise of the horse in Hammer-Purgstall's Duftkörner; it deserves more than this latter the praise of majestic simplicity, which is the first feature of classic superiority. Jer. falsely renders Job 39:19: aut circumdabis collo ejus hinnitum; as Schlottm., who also wishes to be so understood: Dost thou adorn his neck with the voice of thunder? The neck (צַוָּאר, prop. the twister, as Persic gerdân, gerdan, from צוּר, Arab. ṣâr, to twist by pressure, to turn, bend, as Pers. from gerdı̂den, to turn one's self, twist) has nothing to do with the voice of neighing. But רַעְמָה also does not signify dignity (Ew. 113, d), but the mane, and is not from רָעַם = רָאַם = רָם, the hair of the mane, as being above, like λοφιά, but from רָעַם, tremere, the mane as quivering, trembling (Eliz. Smith: the shaking mane); like φόβη, according to Kuhn, cogn. with σόβη, the tail, from φοβεῖν (σοβεῖν), to wag, shake, scare, comp. άΐ́σσεσθαι of the mane, Il. vi. 510.
Job 39:20
The motion of the horse, which is intended by תַרְעִישֶׁנּוּ (רָעַשׁ, Arab. r‛s, r‛š, tremere, trepidare), is determined according to the comparison with the grasshopper: what is intended is a curved motion forwards in leaps, now to the right, now to the left, which is called the caracol, a word used in horsemanship, borrowed from the Arab. hargala-l-farasu (comp. חַרְגֹּל), by means of the Moorish Spanish; moreover, Arab. r‛s is used of the run of the ostrich and the flight of the dove in such “successive lateral and oblique motions” (Carey). nachar, Job 39:20, is not the neighing of the horse, but its snorting through the nostrils (comp. Arab. nachı̂r, snoring, a rattling in the throat), Greek φρύαγμα, Lat. fremitus (comp. Aeschylus, Septem c. Th. 374, according to the text of Hermann: ἵππος χαλινῶν δ ̓ ὡς κατασθμαίνων βρέμει); הֹוד, however, might signify pomp (his pompous snorting), but perhaps has its radical signification, according to which it corresponds to the Arab. hawı̂d, and signifies a loud strong sound, as the peal of thunder (hawı̂d er-ra‛d),' the howling of the stormy wind (hawı̂d er-rijâh), and the like.
(Note: A verse of a poem of Ibn-Dûchi in honour of Dôkân ibn-Gendel runs: Before the crowding (lekdata) of Taijâr the horses fled repulsed, And thou mightest hear the sound of the bell-carriers (hawı̂da mubershemât) of the warriors (el-menâir, prop. one who thrusts with the lance). Here hawı̂d signifies the sound of the bells which those who wish to announce themselves as warriors hang about their horses, to draw the attention of the enemy to them. Mubershemât are the mares that carry the burêshimân, i.e., the bells. The meaning therefore is: thou couldst hear this sound, which ought only to be heard in the fray, in flight, when the warriors consecrated to death fled as cowards. Taijâr (Têjâr) is Sâlih the son of Cana'an (died about 1815), mentioned in p. 456, note 1, a great warrior of the wandering tribe of the 'Aneze. - Wetzst.)
The substantival clause is intended to affirm that its dull-toned snort causes or spreads terror. In Job 39:21 the plur. alternates with the sing., since, as it appears, the representation of the many pawing hoofs is blended with that of the pawing horse, according to the well-known line,
Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum
(Virgil, Aen. viii. 596);
or, since this is said of the galloping horse, according to the likewise Virgilian line,
Cavatque
Tellurem, et solido graviter sonat ungula cornu
(Georg. iii. 87 f).
חָפַר is, as the Arab. hâfir, hoof, shows, the proper word for the horse's impatient pawing of the ground (whence it then, as in Job 39:29, signifies rimari, scrutari). עֵמֶק is the plain as the place of contest; for the description, as now becomes still more evident, refers to the war-horse. The verb שִׂישׂ (שׂוּשׂ) has its radical signification exsultare (comp. Arab. s]âts, skirta'n, of the foetus) here; and since בְּכֹחַ, not בַּכֹּחַ, is added to it, it is not to be translated: it rejoices in its strength, but: it prances or is joyous with strength, lxx γαυριᾷ ἐν Ἰσχύΐ. The difference between the two renderings is, however, scarcely perceptible. נֵשֶׁק, armament, Job 39:21, is meton. the armed host of the enemy; אַשְׁפָּה, “the quiver,” is, however, not used metonymically for the arrows of the enemy whizzing about the horse (Schult.), but Job 39:23 is the concluding description of the horse that rushes on fearlessly, proudly, and impetuously in pursuit, under the rattle and glare of the equipment of its rider (Schlottm. and others). רָנָה (cogn. of רָנַן), of the rattling of the quiver, as Arab. ranna, ranima, of the whirring of the bow when the arrow is despatched; to point it תָּרֹנָּה (Pro 1:20; Pro 8:3), instead of תִּרְנֶה, would be to deprive the language of a word supported by the dialects (vid., Ges. Thes.). On Job 39:24 we may compare the Arab. iltahama-l-farasu-l-arda, the horse swallows up the ground, whence lahimm, lahı̂m, a swallower = swift-runner; so here: with boisterous fierceness and angry impatience (בְּרַעַשׁ וְרֹגֶז) it swallows up the ground, i.e., passes so swiftly over it that long pieces vanish so rapidly before it, as though it greedily sucked them up (גִּמֵּא intensive of גָּמָא, whence גֹּמֶא, the water-sucking papyrus); a somewhat differently applied figure is nahab-el-arda, i.e., according to Silius' expression, rapuit campum. The meaning of Job 39:24 is, as in Virgil, Georg. iii. 83f.:
Tum si qua sonum procul arma dedere,
Stare loco nescit;
and in Aeschylus, Septem, 375: ὅστις βοὴν σάλπιγγος ὁρμαίνει (Hermann, ὀργαίνεἰ μένων (impatiently awaiting the call of the trumpet). הֶֽאֱמִין signifies here to show stability (vid., Genesis, S. 367f.) in the first physical sense (Bochart, Rosenm., and others): it does not stand still, i.e., will not be held, when (כִּי, quum) the sound of the war-trumpet, i.e., when it sounds. שֹׁופָר is the signal-trumpet when the army was called together, e.g., Jdg 3:27; to gather the army that is in pursuit of the enemy, 2Sa 2:28; when the people rebelled, 2Sa 20:1; when the army was dismissed at the end of the war, 2Sa 20:22; when forming for defence and for assault, e.g., Amo 3:6; and in general the signal of war, Jer 4:19. As often as this is heard (בְּדֵי, in sufficiency, i.e., happening at any time = quotiescunque), it makes known its lust of war by a joyous neigh, even from afar, before the collision has taken place; it scents (praesagit according to Pliny's expression) the approaching conflict, (scents even in anticipation) the thundering command of the chiefs that may soon be heard, and the cry of battle giving loose to the assault. “Although,” says Layard (New Discoveries, p. 330), ”docile as a lamb, and requiring no other guide than the halter, when the Arab mare hears the war-cry of the tribe, and sees the quivering spear of her rider, her eyes glitter with fire, her blood-red nostrils open wide, her neck is nobly arched, and her tail and mane are raised and spread out to the wind. The Bedouin proverb says, that a high-bred mare when at full speed should hide her rider between her neck and her tail.”