Bible Strands
Job 39:13
The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but cannot match the pinions and feathers of the stork.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God addresses Job, contrasting the ostrich’s flight with the stork’s, immediately after questioning whether Job can trust a wild animal to harvest grain for him.
The words — רְנָנִ֥ים (re.na.Nim) = ostriches; נֶעֱלָ֑סָה (ne.'e.La.sah) = it flaps joyously.
The thread — The stork appears in Leviticus 11:19 among unclean birds, Jeremiah 8:7 as a creature that knows its appointed seasons, and Zechariah 5:9 as a metaphor for wings carrying wind.
Why it lands — The text states the ostrich’s wings flap joyfully but cannot match the stork’s pinions and plumage, demanding recognition of God’s sovereign design in animal nature that human control cannot replicate.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 8:7 Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons. The turtledove, the swift, and the thrush keep their time of migration, but My people do not know the requirements of the LORD.
- Zechariah 5:9 Then I lifted up my eyes and saw two women approaching, with the wind in their wings. Their wings were like those of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between heaven and earth.
- Leviticus 11:19 the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe, and the bat.
- 1 Kings 10:22 For the king had the ships of Tarshish at sea with Hiram’s fleet, and once every three years the ships of Tarshish would arrive bearing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.
- 2 Chronicles 9:21 For the king had the ships of Tarshish that went with Hiram’s servants, and once every three years the ships of Tarshish would arrive bearing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks.
- Job 30:29 I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of ostriches.
- Psalms 104:17 where the birds build their nests; the stork makes her home in the cypresses.