Job 39:18

18. Lifteth up herself Others read, lasheth herself, justifying the rendering by the feeble reason that her wings seem a lash to impel herself forward. Such “lashing of wing” would but faintly repeat the grander conception of Job 39:13, of “waving the wing joyously.” It is now generally accepted, that the ostrich runs more swiftly than any other animal. Hence the Arab proverb, “swifter than an ostrich.” Dr. Livingstone calculates the speed of the ostrich at twenty-six miles an hour, and its stride, when bounding at full speed, Tristram says is from twenty-two to twenty-eight feet. Xenophon furnishes a fine illustration of the Authorized Version, “But no one ever caught the ostrich, for in her flight she kept constantly drawing on the pursuer, now running on foot, and again lifting herself up with her wings spread out, as though she had hoisted sails.” Anabasis, Job 1:3. In keeping with nature’s law of compensation, the swiftness of this bird compensates for its stupidity.

The horse and his rider This casual mention of the horse and his rider prepares us, rhetorically, for the ensuing description of the war horse, “the only one, in this series, which refers to a tamed animal.” Zockler.