Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

And forgetteth that the foot may crush them - She lays her eggs in the sand, and not, as most birds do, in nests made on branches of trees, or on the crags of rocks, where they would be inaccessible, as if she was forgetful of the fact that the wild beast might pass along and crush them. She often wanders away from them, also, and does not stay near them to guard them, as most parent birds do, as if she were unmindful of the danger to which they might be exposed when she was absent. The object of all this seems to be, to call the attention to the uniqueness in the natural history of this bird, and to observe that there were laws and arrangements in regard to it which seemed to show that she was deprived of wisdom, and yet that everything was so ordered as to prove that she was under the care of the Almighty. The great variety in the laws pertaining to the animal kingdom, and especially their lack of resemblance to what would have occurred to man, seems to give the special force and point to the argument used here.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And forgetteth that the foot may crush them,.... The foot of the traveller, they being laid in the ground, where he may walk, or on the sand of the seashore, where he may tread and trample upon them unawares, and crush them to pieces; to prevent which this creature has no foresight;

or that the wild beast may break them; supposing they may be, though not where men walk, yet where wild beasts frequent, they may be as easily broken by the one as the other; against which it guards not, having no instinct in nature, as some creatures have, to direct to the preservation of them.

John Trapp Complete Commentary

Job 39:15 And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them.

Ver. 15. And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them] This brutish and blockish bird forgetteth, that is, she never considereth, what may befall her eggs, left so carelessly. Other fowl set their nests aloft and out of harm’s way; not so this foolish and careless creature, who hath neither affection to preserve them nor fear to lose them.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

The feet, to wit, of wild beasts as it follows passing that way.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

15.Forgetteth that the foot may crush them — “Several eggs lie out of the nest, and are thought to be intended as food for the first of the newly-hatched brood till the rest come out and enable the whole to start in quest of food.” — Ibid., p. 172. “Among the very few polygamous birds,” says Barren. “that are found in the state of nature, the ostrich is one. The male, distinguished by its glossy black feathers from the dusky gray female, is generally seen with two or three, and frequently as many as five, of the latter. These females lay their eggs in one nest, to the number of ten or twelve each, which they hatch altogether, the male taking his turn, sitting on them among the rest. Between sixty and seventy eggs have been found in one nest, and if incubation has begun, a few are most commonly lying round the sides of the hole, having been thrown out by the birds, on finding the nest to contain more than it could conveniently hold.” — Travels in Southern Africa, p. 170.

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - Unabridged

And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them.

No JFB commentary on this verse.