A35538:1660
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second,…
An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second, being the five last, chapters of the book of Job being the substance of fifty-two lectures or meditations / by Joseph Caryl ...
London: printed by M. and S. Simmons, 1666
Title page typeset from the transcription.
AN EXPOSITION WITH Practical Observations UPON The Thirty-eighth, T… › Chapter 39 › Verse 13-18
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Thus we have the first part of the description of the Ostrich, who being so very foolish, not to discharge her duty to her eggs, God himself doth it, his providence orders the Sun to warm them, and the Sand to bring them forth. And as the Ostrich is careless of her eggs, before they are hatched, so she neglects her young ones as much when they are hatched, as is showed in the next verse.
Thus we have the first part of the description of the Ostrich, who being so very foolish, not to discharge her duty to her eggs, God himself doth it, his providence orders the Sun to warm them, and the Sand to bring them forth. And as the Ostrich is careless of her eggs, before they are hatcht, so she neglects her young ones as much when they are hatcht, as is shewed in the next verse.
Vers. 16. She is hardened against her young ones, as if they were not hers.
This verse gives us a farther description of that Bird-beast the Ostrich, by her unnaturalness to her off-spring; having left her eggs carelessly to hatch or perish in the dust, she is as careless of ⟨p. 405⟩her brood when they are hatched; when the heat of the Sun (say some) by the providence of God, hath done one part of her duty, to bring them forth, she neglects the other part of her duty, which is, to bring them up; and so the pains that she took in laying so many great eggs (one tells us, her nest is usually sto•ed with fourscore eggs, others say with twenty, the least say with twelve or ten) seems to be in vain, she taking no care of them, not having any regard to them. This the Spirit of God expresseth in the beginning of the 16th verse, She is hardened against her young ones; she is as forgetful of her chickens (if I may so call them) as she was of her eggs. Rabbi Abraham reads thus, God hath hardened her against her young ones; and the reason that he gives for it, is, because the word is in the Masculine Gender, which cannot well agree with the Feminine her. And we find it in an active signification ascribed to God (