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Gavest thou: the style of this book is very concise, and some verb is manifestly wanting to supply the sense; and this seems to be fitly understood out of Job_39:19, where it is expressed. The goodly; or, triumphant; that wherein it triumpheth or prideth itself. Wings, or feathers; Heb. wing or feather. The peacock’s beauty lies in its tail; which may well enough be comprehended under this name, as it is confessed that the Latin word ala, which properly signifies a wing, is used by Martial and Claudian to express the peacock’s tail.
The peacocks; or, as some render it, to the ostrich, whose wings are much more great and goodly than those of the peacock. And for the other word in the next clause, which is rendered
ostrich, they translate it another way; for that the Hebrew word hasidah doth not signify an ostrich, seems plain from the mention and description of that bird, Psa_104:17 Jer_8:7 Lam_4:3 Zec_5:9, which doth not at all agree to the ostrich. And forasmuch as the following verses do evidently speak of the ostrich, and it is absurd to discourse of a bird which had not been so much as named, and consequently the name of it must be found in this verse, and there is no other word in this verse which bids so fair for it, it may seem probable that this word is not to be rendered the peacock, (though it be so taken by most,) but the ostrich. Nor is it likely that both the peacock and the ostrich should be crowded together into one verse, especially when all the following characters belong only to the latter of them. Add to this, that it is confessed, even by the Hebrew writers themselves, that there is a great uncertainty in the signification of the names of birds and beasts; and therefore it is not strange if many interpreters were mistaken in the signification of this word. Or
wings and feathers unto the ostrich: or, or the wings or feathers of the stork (or, or) the ostrich. Or, didst thou give (which may be repeated out of the former branch)
the wings and feathers to the stork? Or, verily (the particle im being oft used as a note of confirmation, as Psa_59:16 63:7 Pro_3:34 23:18) it hath
wings and feathers like those of a stork; for so indeed they are, black and white like them. And this may be noted as a great and a remarkable work of God, that it should really have wings and feathers as other birds have, and particularly the stork, who comes nearest to it in bulk and colour, although otherwise, by its vast bulk, it might seem to be a beast rather than a bird, as it is also called by Aristotle, and Pliny, and others.