Job 12:7

b. The divine wisdom on which Zophar has descanted, the entire brute creation might have taught him. And yet Zophar does not know that He who is Lord over life and death, lets the wicked live, Job 12:7-12.

7. Ask now the beasts… and the fowls, etc. Among the Hindus, if any one refuses instruction or will not be convinced, he is told to ask the cattle, inquire of the birds, and that they will give him wisdom. (Roberts.) Some imagine that Job appeals to the brute creation to show that the most rapacious are most secure. But others more correctly suppose that he resumes the thought with which his discourse opens (Job 12:3) that of the power and wisdom of God. In the world’s great school (he says) anybody might learn “these.” The Scriptures frequently summon the so-called inferior creation to instruct man in things pertaining to wisdom. “Every creature hath a trumpet in his mouth to proclaim the Deity.” The world of instinct is one of mystery which man cannot fathom. It is with us, but separated from us by a great gulf which neither man nor brute can cross. As respects the interchange of thought, the brute world moves around us in an orbit of silence, but one that none the less reflects its Maker’s praise. Lord Erskine would never allow animals to be called the brute creation; he called them the mute creation. Instinct trenches upon reason at so many points, in some respects vastly surpassing it, that it does not become the monarch man to look upon his subjects with disdain. In ways we know not of, they may proclaim in the ear of the great Creator his wisdom, power, and love.