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Saturday, August 23rd, 2025
the Week of Proper 15 / Ordinary 20
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Bahasa Indonesia Sehari-hari

Ayub 39:14

(39-17) Sebab telurnya ditinggalkannya di tanah, dan dibiarkannya menjadi panas di dalam pasir,

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Birds;   God;   Ostriches;   Thompson Chain Reference - Eggs;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Ostrich, the;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Ostrich;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Animals;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Egg;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Birds;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Job;   Knowledge;   Nature;   Ostrich;   World;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Ostrich;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Ostrich,;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Egg;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Ostrich;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Eggs;  

Parallel Translations

Alkitab Terjemahan Baru
(39-17) Sebab telurnya ditinggalkannya di tanah, dan dibiarkannya menjadi panas di dalam pasir,
Alkitab Terjemahan Lama
Beranikah engkau mempergunakan kuatnya yang amat besar itu dan menyerahkan kepadanya pekerjaanmu?

Contextual Overview

13 Gauest thou the faire winges vnto the pecockes, or winges and fethers vnto the Estriche? 14 For she leaueth her egges in the earth, and heateth them in the dust. 15 She remembreth not that they might be troden with feete, or broken with some wilde beaste. 16 So harde is she vnto her young ones as though they were not hers, and laboureth in vaine without any feare. 17 And that because God hath taken wysdome from her, & hath not geuen her vnderstanding. 18 When her time is that she fleeth vp on hie, she careth neither for the horse nor the ryder.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Reciprocal: Proverbs 27:8 - a bird

Cross-References

Genesis 10:21
Unto Sem also the father of all the children of Heber, and elder brother of Iapheth, there were chyldren borne.
Genesis 14:13
And there came one that had escaped, and tolde Abram the Hebrewe, whiche dwelled in the playne of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eschol, and brother of Aner, whiche were confederate with Abram.
Genesis 39:7
And after this, his maisters wyfe cast her eyes vpon Ioseph, and saide: [come] lye with me.
Genesis 39:14
She called vnto the men of her house, and tolde them, saying: See, he hath brought in an Hebrue vnto vs, to do vs shame: for he came in to me to haue lyen with me, and I began to crie with a loude voyce:
Genesis 39:17
And she tolde him with these wordes, saying: This Hebrue seruaunt whiche thou hast brought vnto vs, came vnto me to do me shame.
Genesis 39:18
But assoone as I lyft vp my voyce and cryed, he left his garment with me, and fledde out.
Genesis 39:19
When his maister hearde the wordes of his wyfe whiche she tolde hym, saying, after this maner dyd thy seruaunt to me: he waxed wroth.
Genesis 40:15
For I was priuily by stealth taken away out of the lande of the Hebrewes: and here also haue I done nothyng at all wherfore they shoulde haue put me into this dungeon.
Psalms 35:11
False witnesse did rise vp: they layde thinges to my charge that I know not.
Psalms 55:3
[Deliuer me] from the voyce of the enemie, and from the present affliction of the wicked: for they are minded to do me mischiefe, and are set malitiously against me.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Which leaveth her eggs in the earth,.... Lays them and leaves them there. Aelianus, agreeably to this, says w, that it builds a low nest in the ground, making a hollow in the sand with its feet; though he seems to be mistaken as to the number of its eggs, which he makes to be more than eighty; more truly Leo Africanus x, who reckons them ten or twelve; which, he says, it lays in the sand, and each of them are of the size of a cannon ball, and weigh fifteen pounds, more or less. Hence, with the Arabs, it is called

"the mother of eggs,''

because of the large eggs it lays; and with them it is a proverb,

"meaner, or of a lesser account, than the eggs of an ostrich,''

because its eggs are neglected by it y;

and warmeth them in the dust; not that she leaves them to be warmed by the hot sand, or by the heat of the sun upon them, by which they are hatched, as has been commonly said, for thereby they would rather be corrupted and become rotten; but she herself warms them and hatches them, by sitting upon them in the dust and sand: and for this the above historian is express, who says z, the female lighting on these eggs, whether her own or another's, sits on them and heats them. Concerning the ostrich hatching its eggs, Vansleb a, from an Arabic manuscript, relates what is incredible, that they are hatched by the male and female with their eye only; that one or other of them keep continually looking at them until they are all hatched; and this I observe is asserted also by another writer b.

w De Animal. l. 14. c. 17. x Ut supra. (Descriptio Africaae, l. 9. p. 766.) y Hottinger. Smegm. Orient. l. 1. c. 7. p. 128. z Descript. Africae, ut supra. (l. 9. p. 766.) Vid. Aelian. l. 4. c. 37. a Relation of a Voyage to Egypt, p. 64. b Coelius, l. 10. c. 5. apud Sanctium in loc.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Which leaveth her eggs in the earth - That is, she does not build a nest, as most birds do, but deposits her eggs in the sand. The ostrich, Dr. Shaw remarks, lays usually from thirty to fifty eggs. The eggs are very large, some of them being above five inches in diameter, and weighing fifteen pounds - Goldsmith. “We are not to consider,” says Dr. Shaw, “this large collection of eggs as if they were all intended for a brood. They are the greatest part of them reserved for food, which the dam breaks, and disposeth of according to the number and cravings of her young ones.” The idea which seems to be conveyed in our common version is, that the ostrich deposits her eggs in the sand, and then leaves them, without further care, to be hatched by the heat of the sun. This idea is not, however, necessarily implied in the original, and is contrary to fact. The truth is, that the eggs are deposited with great care, and with so much attention to the manner in which they are placed, that a line drawn from those in the extremities would just touch the tops of the intermediate ones (see Damir, as quoted by Bochart, “Hieroz.” P. ii. Lib. ii. c. xvii. p. 253), and that they are hatched, as the eggs of other birds are, in a great measure by the heat imparted by the incubation of the parent bird.

It is true that in the hot climates where these birds live, there is less necessity for constant incubation than in colder latitudes, and that the parent bird is more frequently absent; but she is accustomed regularly to return at night, and carefully broods over her eggs. See Le Valliant, “Travels in the Interior of Africa,” ii. 209, 305. It is true also that the parent bird wanders sometimes far from the place where the eggs are deposited, and forgets the place, and in this case if another nest of eggs is seen, she is not concerned whether they are her own or not, for she is not endowed with the power of distinguishing between her own eggs and those of another. This fact seems to have given rise to all the fables stated by the Arabic writers about the stupidity of the ostrich; about her leaving her eggs; and about her disposition to sit on the eggs of others. Bochart has collected many of these opinions from the Arabic writers, among which are the following: Alkazuinius says, “They say that no bird is more foolish than the ostrich, for while it forsakes its own eggs, it sits on the eggs of others; from the proverb, “Every animal loves its own young except the ostrich.”

Ottomanus says, “Every animal loves its own progeny except the ostrich. But that pertains only to the male. For although the common proverb imputes folly to the female, yet with her folly she loves her young, and feeds them, and teaches them to fly, the same as other animals.” Damir, an Arabic writer, says, “When the ostrich goes forth from her nest, that she may seek food, if she finds the egg of another ostrich, she sits on that, and forgets her own. And when driven away by hunters, she never returns; whence, it is that she is described as foolish, and that the proverb in regard to her has originated.

And warmeth them in dust - The idea which was evidently in the mind of the translators in this passage was, that the ostrich left her eggs in the dust to be hatched by the heat of the sun. This is not correct, and is not necessarily implied in the Hebrew, though undoubtedly the heat of the sand is made to contribute to the process of hatching the egg, and allows the parent bird to be absent longer from her nest than birds in colder climates. This seems to be all that is implied in the passage.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 39:14. Which leaveth her eggs in the earth — This want of parental affection in the ostrich is almost universally acknowledged. Mr. Jackson, in his Account of Morocco, observes: "The ostrich, having laid her eggs, goes away, forgetting or forsaking them: and if some other ostrich discover them, she hatches them as if they were her own, forgetting probably whether they are or are not; so deficient is the recollection of this bird." This illustrates Job 39:15: "And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them." The poet seems well acquainted with every part of the subject on which he writes; and facts incontestable confirm all he says. For farther illustration, see the account from Dr. Shaw at the end of the chapter. Job 39:30.


 
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