Job 39:26

β . Now that the splendid digression, setting before us the war-horse, is at an end, the thread of the subject is again taken up, and a new illustration given of diversities springing from similarities; a simple subject, which Job has failed to elucidate. The hawk and the eagle are marvellously alike in their structure, ( both belong to the Falconidae,) and yet the one is distinguished by a migratory instinct, while the other easily sits at the head of the bird creation, marked by wondrous powers of flight and no less wondrous vision, which, instead of leading it, as is the case with the hawk, on long and unknown journeys, serves rather for spying out an ignominious prey. 26-30.

“From that which is here intimated, (to wit, that other animals must sacrifice their life in order to satisfy the bloodthirsty brood of an eagle,) do we not see that the suffering of a single creature might, in God’s plan, be designed to benefit other creatures of God?” Victor Andrea.

26. The hawk God next adduces the strange instinct which, “intelligent of seasons,” leads to the migration of birds. The hawk is instanced, perhaps because he was esteemed sacred by some ancient nations. The hawk migrates southward during the latter part of September, “not in groups,” says Dr. Thomson, (i, 506,) “as do cranes, geese, and storks; but keeps passing for days in straggling lines, like scattered ranks of a routed army. Here and there, as far as eye can reach, they come, flying every one apart, but all going steadily to the south.” Of the law that enables

These aery caravans, high over seas

Flying, and over lands,

To steer their annual voyage, borne on winds,

back to the very spot that gave them birth, may we not say, with Hooker, comprehensively and grandly, “See we not plainly that obedience of creatures to the law of nature is the stay of the whole world?” The world of instinct, quite as much as that of reason, is emblazoned within and without with marks of divine thought and wisdom. The ways of reason do not so much elude the grasp of the human mind as do those of instinct. The superior, superhuman thought by which a confessedly inferior world is imbued and animated, is sublimely declaratory of a God. For instance, the mathematical (hexagonal) figure in which the bee works, displaying outgoings of mind to which man has so slowly attained, no less than the stately, undeviating flight of the hawk, points upward to a divine mind to an intelligence which is not from the animals themselves, but which is a necessity that has been laid upon them by a higher intelligence. The world of instinct proves to be “an inner design, and omnipresent reason in things,” and “in its proper spirit, it is an uninterrupted divine service, a thoughtful, intelligent glorification of that inexhaustible wisdom which reveals itself in nature.” Fichte. Job may be tacitly reminded of his own appeal to the brute creation. See Job 12:7, with note.

The wondrous instinct of the hawk evidently led to its being held sacred throughout the land of Egypt. In various combinations the figure of the bird served for the function of Egyptian hieroglyphics. See BUNSEN, Egypt’s Place, etc., 1:507, 517. It was sacred to Horus, (the Egyptian Apollo,) whose priests, according to AElian, ( Hist. of Anim., Job 10:14,) were called hieracobosci, or hawk-feeders, since it was their office to take care of the sacred hawks.