07/15/2022 – Day 138 – Job 39 – 40 // I missed the analogy between the ostrich and careless parents. (Chapter 39: 13-18) But Matthew Henry to the rescue once again…
WIthout further adieu, here is Matthews commentary on this section:
“Something that is peculiar to itself. Most birds, as well as other animals, are strangely guided by their young. But the ostrich is a monster, for she drops her effs anywhere upon the ground and takes no care to hatch them. If the sand and the sun will hatch them, well and good; for she will not warm them, v. 14. The foot of the traveler may crush them and the wild beast may break them, v15. She is hardened against her young ones. Her labour in laying her eggs is in vain, because she has not that tender concern for them that she should have. God has deprived her of wisdom.
This intimates that the art which other other animals have to nourish and preserve their you is God’s gift, and that, where it exists not, God denies it, that by the folly of the ostrich, as well as by the wisdom of the ant, we may learn to be wise. So careless are many parents of their children; some of their bodies, not providing for their own house, and therefore as bad as the ostrich; but many more are thus careless of their children’s souls, take no care of their education, send them abroad into the world untaught, unarmed, forgetting what corruption there is in the world through lust. She leaves her eggs in danger, but if she herself be in danger, she lifts up her wings, and with the help of them, runs so fast that a horseman at full speed cannot overtake her: She scorneth the horse and his rider. Those that are least under the law of natural affection often content most for the law of self -preservation. (Jimmy’s bold)
Jimmy note:
Many question the subsitutionary atonement: Why did Jesus have to die for my sins? In a lesser way, we are faced with that as parents of our children. Yes, we will suffer in a small way for taking the time to read to our children and answering those questions, seemingly for the hundredth time. But if we don’t make that choice to sacrifice for them, who suffers? Is it not our children?
Soli Deo Gloria!