Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 35:11

Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven?

11. God has given to men a higher wisdom than to the beasts, and communicates to them a continuous instruction through His fellowship and ways. Their appeal to heaven should not be the mere instinctive cry of suffering, but the voice of trust and submission.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth – Who is able to teach us mere than the irrational creation; that is, in regard to the nature and design of affliction. They suffer without knowing why. They are subjected to toil and hardships; endure pain, and die, without any knowledge why all this occurs, and without any rational view of the government and plans of God. It is not, or need not be so, says Elihu, when man suffers. He is intelligent. He can understand why he is afflicted. He has only to make use of his superior endowments, and apply to his Maker, and he will see so much of the reason of his doings that he will acquiesce in the wise arrangement. Perhaps there is an implied reflection here on those who suffered generally, as if they manifested no more intelligence than the brute creation. They make no use of intellectual endowments. They do not examine the nature of the divine administration, and they do not apply to God for instruction and help. If they should do so, he would teach them so that they would acquiesce and rejoice in his government and dealings. According to this view, the meaning is, that if people suffer without relief and consolation, it is to be attributed to their stupidity and unwillingness to look to God for light and aid, and not at all to his injustice.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 11. Who teacheth us more than the beasts] “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib; but Israel doth not know me, my people do not consider; ” Isa 1:3. Beasts, bards, fowls, and in many cases pond-fishes, know and seem thankful to the hand that feeds them; while man, made much more noble than they, gifted with the greatest powers, privileged with the most important benefits, considers not the Lord, nor discerns the operation of his hand. Quadrupeds, reptiles, and fowls, have more gratitude to their masters than man has to his God.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

This is mentioned as a further aggravation of mens neglect of God in their misery. God hath given to men those gifts which he hath denied to beasts, reason and religion, wisdom to know God and themselves, and their obligations to God, and their dependence upon him. And therefore it ill becometh them to lie like brute creatures, roaring and crying out in their miseries, without taking any notice of God in way of prayer or praise; and if they do so, it is no wonder if God takes no notice of them.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

11. Man’s spirit, whichdistinguishes him from the brute, is the strongest proof of God’sbeneficence; by the use of it we may understand that God is theAlmighty helper of all sufferers who humbly seek Him; and that theyerr who do not so seek Him.

fowls(see on Job28:21).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth?…. Who are taught and know much, especially some of them; but not so much as man, see Isa 1:3;

and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven? who are wise to provide food and nests for themselves and their young; and such as are birds of passage, as the turtledove, the crane, the stork, and the swallow, to know the time of their coming and returning, see Jer 8:7. But then neither the beasts not; the fowls, though they are endowed with much knowledge and sagacity, according to their natures, yet not with reason and understanding, as men are, so as to make reflections on things they see and hear, and reason and discourse about them; nor are they capable of being taught and attaining to knowledge and wisdom as men are, by the works of God, of creation, and providence; and by the word of God, the Scriptures of truth, which are able to make men wise unto salvation; and by the Spirit of God, who teaches all things of a spiritual nature. God not only endows men with reason, but with sentiments of religion, which brutes are incapable of: he gives to men wisdom in the hidden part; he puts in them his fear, which is the beginning of wisdom; he makes them wise to know God in Christ, and to know his Son Jesus Christ, whom to know is life eternal; and he gives them knowledge of a future state, and hope of immortality and eternal life. Wherefore it becomes them to bear afflictions and oppressions with a fortitude of mind, and patiently submit to the will of God, and wait his time for deliverance, having called upon him in faith, and left their case with him; but if they only cry, as the brutes do under their burdens, it need not seem strange they are not heard and answered; since God has given them more wisdom and knowledge than they, and therefore should behave after another manner; though sometimes they act a part inferior to them, Jude 1:10.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(11) Who teacheth us.Or it may be, Who teacheth us by, and maketh us wise by, &c. Then the sense will be that the oppression is so severe that the victims of it forget that God can give songs in the night, and that He has favoured men more than the beasts of the field, and that, as not one sparrow can fall to the ground without Him, so He has even numbered the hairs of those who are of more value to Him than many sparrows.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

11. More than the beasts of the earth The bestowment of reason and of a moral sense, and of the knowledge of God and of our duty, leads God to expect something more from us than brutish cries, such as those of the raven, (Psa 147:9,) or the thirsty cattle, (Joe 1:20,) or the hungry young lion. (Psa 104:21.) Their cries he hears, but not the cries of prayerless men.

Fowls of heaven See note Job 12:7; Job 28:7; Job 28:21.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 35:11 Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven?

Ver. 11. Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth ] This many wretched people never consider; and are therefore heavily, but worthily, vexed by oppressors, ut vexatio det intellectum, that smart may make wit; and that they may not bellow as beasts do when they feel pain; but flee to God by well prepared prayer, not so much for ease as for the use of what they suffer. Now, blessed is the man whom God chasteneth, and withal teacheth him out of his law; that he may give him rest from the days of adversity, Psa 94:12-13 . Hereunto, not only reason is required (the mercy here mentioned, and celebrated), but religion also; which is the true philosopher’s stone that makes golden afflictions, 1Pe 1:7 , and, as Moses’s hand, turneth a serpent into a rod. The truth is, religion is the highest reason (neither is anything more irrational than irreligion, 2Th 3:2 ), and this also God alone teacheth. For, Cathedram habet in coelo qui corda docet, saith Austin. And again, Quando Christus Magister, quam cito discitur quod docetur? It is God above who teacheth the heart; and this, if he once undertake, it is soon despatched. All this, if sinful men would well weigh, and be thankful for, as they ought, God would surely help them, and not suffer them so to be held under.

And maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven? ] Sapientificat. Some birds are very silly, as the struthiocamelus, that having thrust his head into a thicket, and seeing nobody, thinketh that therefore none seeth him, and so maketh himself a prey (Plin. l. x. c. 1). Doves sit in their dovecotes and see their nests destroyed, their young ones taken away and killed before their eyes; neither ever do they offer to rescue or revenge. Mention is made by writers of a certain nameless little bird, which, for fear lest the heavens should fall upon her, puts always, when she sleepeth, one foot upon her head (Cael. Rhod.). How much better the bird onocrotalus; of whom it is reported, that out of expectation of the hawk to grapple with her, she sleepeth with her beak exalted, as if she would contend with her adversary. Something there is that the wisest may learn from the fowls of the air, to whom, therefore, they are sent and set to school, Mat 6:26 Jer 8:7 ; yet generally God hath put more understanding into men; so that as he should not do like them by preying upon others, so he should not cry unto God only in distress, as the young ravens do when hunger bitten; but pray always, and in everything give thanks; for which purpose it is that God hath given us reason, speech, and much matter and means, far above the unreasonable creatures. Vae igitur stupiditati hominum in calamitatibus torpentium.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)