Job 39:16

16. She is hardened against her young ones More correctly, she deals hardly with her young. Dr. Tristram remarks: “Though I did not myself see the eggs scattered on the surface, yet all my Arab friends assured me that it is the invariable habit of the bird so to place many of them; and that far more are laid than are ever incubated. It is from this habit, most probably, that the want of parental instinct is laid to the charge of the ostrich. At the same time, when surprised by man with the young, before they are able to run, the parent bird scuds off and leaves its offspring to its fate.” Natural History, p. 238. “On the least noise or trivial occasion,” says Dr. Shaw, “she forsakes her eggs or her young ones, to which, perhaps, she never returns.” The little ones are often to be met, “no bigger than well-grown pullets, half starved, straggling and moaning about, like so many distressed orphans, for their mother.” Travels in Barbary, p. 452. The ostrich was proverbial for its cruelty. (Lamentations 4:3.)

Without fear She feels no distress (literally, “fear”) at the view that her labour is in vain. “If the ostrich observes that its nest is discovered, it tramples upon its own eggs and makes its nest elsewhere.” LICHTENSTEIN in Delitzsch. That she is not possessed of proper solicitude is given as an indirect reason why her labour is to so little purpose; thus anticipating the more comprehensive reason given in the following verse.