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Job 39:9
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- Tyndale
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee? - The "fine elegant animal like a horse, with one long rich curled horn growing out of his forehead," commonly called the unicorn, must be given up as fabulous. The heralds must claim him as their own; place him in their armorial bearings as they please, to indicate the unreal actions, fictitious virtues, and unfought martial exploits of mispraised men. It is not to the honor of the royal arms of Great Britain that this fabulous animal should be one of their supporters. The animal in question, called רים reim, is undoubtedly the rhinoceros, who has the latter name from the horn that grows on his nose. The rhinoceros is known by the name of reim in Arabia to the present day. He is allowed to be a savage animal, showing nothing of the intellect of the elephant. His horn enables him to combat the latter with great success; for, by putting his nose under the elephant's belly, he can rip him up. His skin is like armor, and so very hard as to resist sabres, javelins, lances, and even musket-balls; the only penetrable parts being the belly, the eyes, and about the ears. Or abide by thy crib? - These and several of the following expressions are intended to point out his savage, untameable nature.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
9 Will the oryx be willing to serve thee, Or will he lodge in thy crib? 10 Canst thou bind the oryx in the furrow with a leading rein, Or will he harrow the valleys, following thee? 11 Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great, And leave thy labour to him? 12 Wilt thou confide in him to bring in thy sowing, And to garner thy threshing-floor? In correct texts רים has a Dagesh in the Resh, and היאבה the accent on the penult., as Pro 11:21 ינּקה רע, and Jer 39:12 רּע מאוּמה. The tone retreats according to the rule, Ges. 29, 3, b; and the Dagesh is, as also when the second word begins with an aspirate, (Note: The National Grammarians call this exception to the rule, that the muta is aspirated when the preceding word ends with a vowel, אתי מרחיק (veniens e longinquo), i.e., the case, where the word ending with a vowel is Milel, whether from the very first, or, when the second word is a monosyllable or has the tone on the penult., on account of the accent that has retreated (in order to avoid two syllables with the chief tone coming together); in this case the aspirate, and in general the initial letter (if capable of being doubled) of the second monosyllabic or penultima-accented word, takes a Dagesh; but this is not without exceptions that are quite as regular. Regularly, the second word is not dageshed if it begins with ו, כ, ל, ב, or if the first word is only a bare verb, e.g., עשׂה לו, or one that has only ו before it, e.g., ועשׂה פסח; the tone of the first word in both these examples retreats, but without the initial of the second being doubled. This is supplementary, and as far as necessary a correction, to what is said in Psalter, i 392, Anm.) Dag. forte conj., which the Resh also takes, Pro 15:1 מענה־רּך, exceptionally, according to the rule, Ges. 20, 2, a. In all, it occurs thirteen times with Dagesh in the Old Testament - a relic of a mode of pointing which treated the ר (as in Arabic) as a letter capable of being doubled (Ges. 22, 5), that has been supplanted in the system of pointing that gained the ascendency. רים (Psa 22:22, רם) is contracted from ראם (Psa 92:11, plene, ראים), which (= ראם) is of like form with Arab. ri'm (Olsh. 154, a). (Note: Since ra'ima, inf. ri'mân, has the signification assuescere, ראם, רים, רימנא (Targ.) might describe the oryx as a gregarious animal, although all ruminants have this characteristic in common. On ראם, Arab. r'm, vid., Seetzen's Reise, iii. S. 393, Z 9ff., and also iv. 496.) Such, in the present day in Syria, is the name of the gazelle that is for the most part white with a yellow back and yellow stripes in the face (Antilope leucoryx, in distinction from Arab. ‛ifrı̂, the earth-coloured, dirty-yellow Antilope oryx, and Arab. ḥmrı̂, himrı̂, the deer-coloured Antilope dorcas); the Talmud also (b. Zebachim, 113b; Bathra, 74b) combines ראימא and אורזילא or ארזילא, a gazelle (Arab. gazâl), and therefore reckons the reêm to the antelope genus, of which the gazelle is a species; and the question, Job 39:10, shows that an animal whose home is on the mountains is intended, viz., as Bochart, and recently Schlottm. (making use of an academic treatise of Lichtenstein on the antelopes, 1824), has proved, the oryx, which the lxx also probably understands when it translates μονοκέρως; for the Talmud. קרש, mutilated from it, is, according to Chullin, 59b, a one-horned animal, and is more closely defined as טביא דבי עילאי, "gazelle (antelope) of Be (Beth)-Illi" (comp. Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmuds, 1858, 146). The oryx also appears on Egyptian monuments sometimes with two horns, but mostly with one variously curled; and both Aristotle (Note: Vid., Sundevall, Die Thierarten des Aristoteles (Stockholm, 1863), S. 64f.) and Pliny describe it as a one-horned cloven-hoof; so that one must assent to the supposition of a one-horned variety of the oryx (although as a fact of natural history it is not yet fully established), as then there is really tolerably certain information of a one-horned antelope both in Upper Asia and in Central Africa; (Note: J. W. von Mller (Das Einhorn von gesch. u. naturwiss. Standpunkte betrachtet, 1852) believed that in a horn in the Ambras Collection at Vienna he recognised a horn of the Monocers (comp. Fechner's Centralblatt, 1854, Nr. 2), but he is hardly right. J. W. von Mller, Francis Galton (Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa, 1853), and other travellers have heard the natives speak ingenuously of the unicorn, but without seeing it themselves. On the other hand, Huc and Gabet (Journeyings through Mongolia and Thibet, Germ. edition) tell us "a horn of this animal was sent to Calcutta: it was 50 centimetres long and 11 in circumference; from the root it ran up to a gradually diminishing point. It was almost straight, black, etc ... . Hodgson, when English consul at Nepal, had the good fortune to obtain an unicorn ... . It is a kind of antelope, which in southern Thibet, that borders on Nepal, is called Tschiru. Hodgson sent a skin and horn to Calcutta; they came from an unicorn that died in the menagerie of the Raja of Nepal." The detailed description follows, and the suggestion is advanced that this Antilope Hodgsonii, as it has been proposed to call the Tschiru, is the one-horned oryx of the ancients. The existence of one-horned wild sheep (not antelopes), attested by R. von Schlagintweit (Zoologischer Garten, 1st year, S. 72), the horn of which consists of two parts gradually growing together, covered by one horn-sheath, does not depreciate the credibility of the account given by Huc-Gabet (to which Prof. Will has called my attention as being the most weighty testimony of the time). Another less minute account is to be found in the Arabic description of a journey (communicated to me by Prof. Fleischer) by Selm Bisteris (Beirt, 1856): In the menagerie of the Viceroy of Egypt he saw an animal of the colour of a gazelle, but the size and form of an ass, with a long straight horn between the ears, and what, as he says, seldom go together) with hoofs, viz. - and as the expression Arab. ḥâfr, horse's hoof (not Arab. chuff, a camel's hoof), also implies - proper, uncloven hoofs, - therefore an one-horned and at the same time one-hoofed antelope.) and therefore there is sufficient ground for seeking the origin of the tradition of the unicorn in an antelope, - perhaps rather like a horse, - with one horn rising out of the two points of ossification over the frontal suture. The proper buffalo, Bos bubalus, cannot therefore be intended, because it only came from India to Western Asia and Europe at a more recent date, but also not any other species whatever of this animal (Carey and others), which is recognisable by its flat horns, which are also near together, and its forbidding, staring, bloodshot eyes; for it is tameable, and is (even in modern Syria) used as a domestic animal. On the other hand there are antelopes which somewhat resemble the horse, others the ox (whence βούβαλος, βούβαλις, is a name for the antelope), others the deer and the ass. Schultens erroneously considers ראם to be the buffalo, being misled by a passage in the Divan of the Hudheilites, which gives the ri'm the by-name of dhu chadam, i.e., oxen-like white-footed, which exactly applies to the A. oryx or even the A. leucoryx; for the former has white feet and legs striped lengthwise with black stripes, the latter white feet and legs. Just as little reason is there for imagining the rhinoceros after Aquila (and in part Jerome); ῥινοκέρως is nothing but an unhappy rendering of the μονοκέρως of the lxx. The question in Job 39:10, as already observed, requires an animal that inhabits the mountains. On אבה, to be willing = to take up, receive. The "furrow (תּלם, sulcus, not porca, the ridge between the furrows) of his cord" is that which it is said to break up by means of the ploughshare, being led by a rein. אחריך refers to the leader, who goes just before or at the side; according to Hahn, to one who has finished the sowing which precedes the harrowing; but it is more natural to imagine the leader of the animal that is harrowing, which is certainly not left to itself. On כּי, Job 39:12, as an exponent of the obj. vid., Ew. 336, b. The Chethib here uses the Kal שׁוּב transitively: to bring back (viz., that which was sown as harvested), which is possible (vid., Job 42:10). גרנך, Job 39:12, is either a locative (into thy threshing-floor) or acc. of the obj. per synecd. continentis pro contento, as Rut 3:2; Mat 3:12. The position of the question from beginning to end assumes an animal outwardly resembling the yoke-ox, as the ראם is also elsewhere put with the ox, Deu 33:17; Psa 29:6; Isa 34:7. But the conclusion at length arrived at by Hahn and in Gesenius' Handwrterbuch, that on this very account the buffalo is to be understood, is a mistake: A. oryx and leucoryx are both (for this very reason not distinguished by the ancients) entirely similar to the ox; they are not only ruminants, like the ox, with a like form of the hoof, but also of a plump form, which makes them appear to be of the ox tribe.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
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, Job 39:12). abide--literally, "pass the night." crib-- (Isa 1:3).
John Gill Bible Commentary
Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee,.... Whether there is or ever was such a creature, as described under the name of an unicorn, is a question: it is thought the accounts of it are for the most part fabulous; though Vartomannus (y) says he saw two at Mecca, which came from Ethiopia, the largest of which had a horn in his forehead three cubits long. There are indeed several creatures which may be called "monocerots", who have but one horn; as the "rhinoceros", and the Indian horses and asses (z). The Arabic geographer (a) speaks of a beast in the Indies, called "carcaddan", which is lesser than an elephant and bigger than a buffalo; having in the middle of the forehead an horn long and thick, as much as two hands can grasp: and not only on land, but in the sea are such, as the "nahr whal", or Greenland whale (b); but then they do not answer to the creature so called in Scripture: and, besides, this must be a creature well known to Job, as it was to the Israelites; and must be a strong creature, from the account that gives of it, and not to be taken as here. And Solinus (c) speaks of such "monocerots" or unicorns, which may be killed, but cannot be taken, and were never known to be in any man's possession alive; and so Aelianus (d) says of the like creature, that it never was remembered that anyone of them had been taken. Some think the "rhinoceros" is meant; but that, though a very strong creature, and so may be thought fit for the uses after mentioned, yet may be tamed; whereas the creature here is represented as untamable, and not to be subdued, and brought under a yoke and managed; and besides, it is not very probable that it was known by Job. Bochart (e) takes it to be the "oryx", a creature of the goat kind; but to me it seems more likely to be of the ox kind, to be similar to them, and so might be thought to do the business of one; and the rather, because of its great strength, and yet could not be brought to do it, nor be trusted with it: for the questions concerning it relate to the work of oxen; and as the wild ass is opposed to the tame one in the preceding paragraph, so here the wild ox to a tame one. And both Strabo (f) and Diodorus Siculus (g) relate, that among the Troglodytes, a people that dwelt near the Red sea, and not far from Arabia, where Job lived, were abundance of wild oxen or bulls, and which far exceeded the common ones in size and swiftness; and the creature called the seem in the original, has its name from height. Now the question is, could Job take one of these wild bulls or oxen, and tame it, and make it willing to do any work or service he should choose to put it to? No, he could not; or abide by thy crib? manger or stall, as the tame or common ox will; who, when it has done its labour, is glad to be led to its stall and feed, and then lie down and rest, and there abide; see Isa 1:3; but not so the wild ox. (y) Navigat. l. 1. c. 19. (z) Vid. Bochart. Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 3. c. 26. (a) Nub. Clim. 1. par. 8. (b) Ludolf. Ethiop. Hist. l. 1. c. 10. Of this narhual, or sea unicorn, see the Philosoph. Transact. abridged, vol. 9. p. 71, 72. (c) Polyhistor. c. 65. (d) De Animal. l. 16. c. 20. (e) Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 3. c. 27. col. 969, &c. (f) Geograph. l. 16. p. 533. (g) Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 175.
Job 39:9
The LORD Speaks of His Creation
8He roams the mountains for pasture, searching for any green thing. 9Will the wild ox consent to serve you? Will he stay by your manger at night? 10Can you hold him to the furrow with a harness? Will he plow the valleys behind you?
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- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
- Tyndale
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee? - The "fine elegant animal like a horse, with one long rich curled horn growing out of his forehead," commonly called the unicorn, must be given up as fabulous. The heralds must claim him as their own; place him in their armorial bearings as they please, to indicate the unreal actions, fictitious virtues, and unfought martial exploits of mispraised men. It is not to the honor of the royal arms of Great Britain that this fabulous animal should be one of their supporters. The animal in question, called רים reim, is undoubtedly the rhinoceros, who has the latter name from the horn that grows on his nose. The rhinoceros is known by the name of reim in Arabia to the present day. He is allowed to be a savage animal, showing nothing of the intellect of the elephant. His horn enables him to combat the latter with great success; for, by putting his nose under the elephant's belly, he can rip him up. His skin is like armor, and so very hard as to resist sabres, javelins, lances, and even musket-balls; the only penetrable parts being the belly, the eyes, and about the ears. Or abide by thy crib? - These and several of the following expressions are intended to point out his savage, untameable nature.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
9 Will the oryx be willing to serve thee, Or will he lodge in thy crib? 10 Canst thou bind the oryx in the furrow with a leading rein, Or will he harrow the valleys, following thee? 11 Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great, And leave thy labour to him? 12 Wilt thou confide in him to bring in thy sowing, And to garner thy threshing-floor? In correct texts רים has a Dagesh in the Resh, and היאבה the accent on the penult., as Pro 11:21 ינּקה רע, and Jer 39:12 רּע מאוּמה. The tone retreats according to the rule, Ges. 29, 3, b; and the Dagesh is, as also when the second word begins with an aspirate, (Note: The National Grammarians call this exception to the rule, that the muta is aspirated when the preceding word ends with a vowel, אתי מרחיק (veniens e longinquo), i.e., the case, where the word ending with a vowel is Milel, whether from the very first, or, when the second word is a monosyllable or has the tone on the penult., on account of the accent that has retreated (in order to avoid two syllables with the chief tone coming together); in this case the aspirate, and in general the initial letter (if capable of being doubled) of the second monosyllabic or penultima-accented word, takes a Dagesh; but this is not without exceptions that are quite as regular. Regularly, the second word is not dageshed if it begins with ו, כ, ל, ב, or if the first word is only a bare verb, e.g., עשׂה לו, or one that has only ו before it, e.g., ועשׂה פסח; the tone of the first word in both these examples retreats, but without the initial of the second being doubled. This is supplementary, and as far as necessary a correction, to what is said in Psalter, i 392, Anm.) Dag. forte conj., which the Resh also takes, Pro 15:1 מענה־רּך, exceptionally, according to the rule, Ges. 20, 2, a. In all, it occurs thirteen times with Dagesh in the Old Testament - a relic of a mode of pointing which treated the ר (as in Arabic) as a letter capable of being doubled (Ges. 22, 5), that has been supplanted in the system of pointing that gained the ascendency. רים (Psa 22:22, רם) is contracted from ראם (Psa 92:11, plene, ראים), which (= ראם) is of like form with Arab. ri'm (Olsh. 154, a). (Note: Since ra'ima, inf. ri'mân, has the signification assuescere, ראם, רים, רימנא (Targ.) might describe the oryx as a gregarious animal, although all ruminants have this characteristic in common. On ראם, Arab. r'm, vid., Seetzen's Reise, iii. S. 393, Z 9ff., and also iv. 496.) Such, in the present day in Syria, is the name of the gazelle that is for the most part white with a yellow back and yellow stripes in the face (Antilope leucoryx, in distinction from Arab. ‛ifrı̂, the earth-coloured, dirty-yellow Antilope oryx, and Arab. ḥmrı̂, himrı̂, the deer-coloured Antilope dorcas); the Talmud also (b. Zebachim, 113b; Bathra, 74b) combines ראימא and אורזילא or ארזילא, a gazelle (Arab. gazâl), and therefore reckons the reêm to the antelope genus, of which the gazelle is a species; and the question, Job 39:10, shows that an animal whose home is on the mountains is intended, viz., as Bochart, and recently Schlottm. (making use of an academic treatise of Lichtenstein on the antelopes, 1824), has proved, the oryx, which the lxx also probably understands when it translates μονοκέρως; for the Talmud. קרש, mutilated from it, is, according to Chullin, 59b, a one-horned animal, and is more closely defined as טביא דבי עילאי, "gazelle (antelope) of Be (Beth)-Illi" (comp. Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmuds, 1858, 146). The oryx also appears on Egyptian monuments sometimes with two horns, but mostly with one variously curled; and both Aristotle (Note: Vid., Sundevall, Die Thierarten des Aristoteles (Stockholm, 1863), S. 64f.) and Pliny describe it as a one-horned cloven-hoof; so that one must assent to the supposition of a one-horned variety of the oryx (although as a fact of natural history it is not yet fully established), as then there is really tolerably certain information of a one-horned antelope both in Upper Asia and in Central Africa; (Note: J. W. von Mller (Das Einhorn von gesch. u. naturwiss. Standpunkte betrachtet, 1852) believed that in a horn in the Ambras Collection at Vienna he recognised a horn of the Monocers (comp. Fechner's Centralblatt, 1854, Nr. 2), but he is hardly right. J. W. von Mller, Francis Galton (Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa, 1853), and other travellers have heard the natives speak ingenuously of the unicorn, but without seeing it themselves. On the other hand, Huc and Gabet (Journeyings through Mongolia and Thibet, Germ. edition) tell us "a horn of this animal was sent to Calcutta: it was 50 centimetres long and 11 in circumference; from the root it ran up to a gradually diminishing point. It was almost straight, black, etc ... . Hodgson, when English consul at Nepal, had the good fortune to obtain an unicorn ... . It is a kind of antelope, which in southern Thibet, that borders on Nepal, is called Tschiru. Hodgson sent a skin and horn to Calcutta; they came from an unicorn that died in the menagerie of the Raja of Nepal." The detailed description follows, and the suggestion is advanced that this Antilope Hodgsonii, as it has been proposed to call the Tschiru, is the one-horned oryx of the ancients. The existence of one-horned wild sheep (not antelopes), attested by R. von Schlagintweit (Zoologischer Garten, 1st year, S. 72), the horn of which consists of two parts gradually growing together, covered by one horn-sheath, does not depreciate the credibility of the account given by Huc-Gabet (to which Prof. Will has called my attention as being the most weighty testimony of the time). Another less minute account is to be found in the Arabic description of a journey (communicated to me by Prof. Fleischer) by Selm Bisteris (Beirt, 1856): In the menagerie of the Viceroy of Egypt he saw an animal of the colour of a gazelle, but the size and form of an ass, with a long straight horn between the ears, and what, as he says, seldom go together) with hoofs, viz. - and as the expression Arab. ḥâfr, horse's hoof (not Arab. chuff, a camel's hoof), also implies - proper, uncloven hoofs, - therefore an one-horned and at the same time one-hoofed antelope.) and therefore there is sufficient ground for seeking the origin of the tradition of the unicorn in an antelope, - perhaps rather like a horse, - with one horn rising out of the two points of ossification over the frontal suture. The proper buffalo, Bos bubalus, cannot therefore be intended, because it only came from India to Western Asia and Europe at a more recent date, but also not any other species whatever of this animal (Carey and others), which is recognisable by its flat horns, which are also near together, and its forbidding, staring, bloodshot eyes; for it is tameable, and is (even in modern Syria) used as a domestic animal. On the other hand there are antelopes which somewhat resemble the horse, others the ox (whence βούβαλος, βούβαλις, is a name for the antelope), others the deer and the ass. Schultens erroneously considers ראם to be the buffalo, being misled by a passage in the Divan of the Hudheilites, which gives the ri'm the by-name of dhu chadam, i.e., oxen-like white-footed, which exactly applies to the A. oryx or even the A. leucoryx; for the former has white feet and legs striped lengthwise with black stripes, the latter white feet and legs. Just as little reason is there for imagining the rhinoceros after Aquila (and in part Jerome); ῥινοκέρως is nothing but an unhappy rendering of the μονοκέρως of the lxx. The question in Job 39:10, as already observed, requires an animal that inhabits the mountains. On אבה, to be willing = to take up, receive. The "furrow (תּלם, sulcus, not porca, the ridge between the furrows) of his cord" is that which it is said to break up by means of the ploughshare, being led by a rein. אחריך refers to the leader, who goes just before or at the side; according to Hahn, to one who has finished the sowing which precedes the harrowing; but it is more natural to imagine the leader of the animal that is harrowing, which is certainly not left to itself. On כּי, Job 39:12, as an exponent of the obj. vid., Ew. 336, b. The Chethib here uses the Kal שׁוּב transitively: to bring back (viz., that which was sown as harvested), which is possible (vid., Job 42:10). גרנך, Job 39:12, is either a locative (into thy threshing-floor) or acc. of the obj. per synecd. continentis pro contento, as Rut 3:2; Mat 3:12. The position of the question from beginning to end assumes an animal outwardly resembling the yoke-ox, as the ראם is also elsewhere put with the ox, Deu 33:17; Psa 29:6; Isa 34:7. But the conclusion at length arrived at by Hahn and in Gesenius' Handwrterbuch, that on this very account the buffalo is to be understood, is a mistake: A. oryx and leucoryx are both (for this very reason not distinguished by the ancients) entirely similar to the ox; they are not only ruminants, like the ox, with a like form of the hoof, but also of a plump form, which makes them appear to be of the ox tribe.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
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, Job 39:12). abide--literally, "pass the night." crib-- (Isa 1:3).
John Gill Bible Commentary
Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee,.... Whether there is or ever was such a creature, as described under the name of an unicorn, is a question: it is thought the accounts of it are for the most part fabulous; though Vartomannus (y) says he saw two at Mecca, which came from Ethiopia, the largest of which had a horn in his forehead three cubits long. There are indeed several creatures which may be called "monocerots", who have but one horn; as the "rhinoceros", and the Indian horses and asses (z). The Arabic geographer (a) speaks of a beast in the Indies, called "carcaddan", which is lesser than an elephant and bigger than a buffalo; having in the middle of the forehead an horn long and thick, as much as two hands can grasp: and not only on land, but in the sea are such, as the "nahr whal", or Greenland whale (b); but then they do not answer to the creature so called in Scripture: and, besides, this must be a creature well known to Job, as it was to the Israelites; and must be a strong creature, from the account that gives of it, and not to be taken as here. And Solinus (c) speaks of such "monocerots" or unicorns, which may be killed, but cannot be taken, and were never known to be in any man's possession alive; and so Aelianus (d) says of the like creature, that it never was remembered that anyone of them had been taken. Some think the "rhinoceros" is meant; but that, though a very strong creature, and so may be thought fit for the uses after mentioned, yet may be tamed; whereas the creature here is represented as untamable, and not to be subdued, and brought under a yoke and managed; and besides, it is not very probable that it was known by Job. Bochart (e) takes it to be the "oryx", a creature of the goat kind; but to me it seems more likely to be of the ox kind, to be similar to them, and so might be thought to do the business of one; and the rather, because of its great strength, and yet could not be brought to do it, nor be trusted with it: for the questions concerning it relate to the work of oxen; and as the wild ass is opposed to the tame one in the preceding paragraph, so here the wild ox to a tame one. And both Strabo (f) and Diodorus Siculus (g) relate, that among the Troglodytes, a people that dwelt near the Red sea, and not far from Arabia, where Job lived, were abundance of wild oxen or bulls, and which far exceeded the common ones in size and swiftness; and the creature called the seem in the original, has its name from height. Now the question is, could Job take one of these wild bulls or oxen, and tame it, and make it willing to do any work or service he should choose to put it to? No, he could not; or abide by thy crib? manger or stall, as the tame or common ox will; who, when it has done its labour, is glad to be led to its stall and feed, and then lie down and rest, and there abide; see Isa 1:3; but not so the wild ox. (y) Navigat. l. 1. c. 19. (z) Vid. Bochart. Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 3. c. 26. (a) Nub. Clim. 1. par. 8. (b) Ludolf. Ethiop. Hist. l. 1. c. 10. Of this narhual, or sea unicorn, see the Philosoph. Transact. abridged, vol. 9. p. 71, 72. (c) Polyhistor. c. 65. (d) De Animal. l. 16. c. 20. (e) Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 3. c. 27. col. 969, &c. (f) Geograph. l. 16. p. 533. (g) Bibliothec. l. 3. p. 175.