The Bible Says
Job 39:26-30 Meaning

In Job 39:26-30, God completes this section of His “zoo tour” with Job by noting the majesty of flight He designed into the hawk and eagle. He begins with the hawk, asking: “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars, Stretching his wings toward the south?” (v. 26).

Does Job understand how the hawk flies? How he soars through the sky? Can he explain that? Job likely lived around 2000 BC. So far as is currently known, it was not until the fourth century BC that humans (specifically the Greeks) began to have a conceptual idea of how birds fly. The flight of birds only reached the point of being mathematically described in the 1500s AD. But even modern mathematics only describe; it does not create. Modern man can create machines that fly, but not a living being.

The concept of stretching his wings toward the south likely refers to a migratory pattern. How do birds know how to migrate? They just do. It is part of their programming. And God is the Master Programmer. It is believed that young birds are born with the ability to navigate their migratory patterns. Can Job do that? Can he do such programming? He cannot, nor can anyone. But God can, and has. He is the Master Programmer.

The phrase by your understanding gets to the heart of things. Job asked for an audience with God, and expressed confidence that God would alter His plans if He heard Job’s perspective (Job 23:2-7). The phrase by your understanding translates a single Hebrew word out of the root word “bina.” We see this word in 1 Chronicles 12:32:

“Of the sons of Issachar, men who understood [“bina”] the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their kinsmen were at their command.”
(1 Chronicles 12:32)

“Bina” indicates a comprehensive, systemic knowledge that lays the foundation to design, create, and plan. God is pointing out to Job that he can’t fly, create something that flies, understand how flight occurs, or teach a hawk where and how to migrate. Job likely considered observing a hawk a common occurrence. But given this interrogation, God is also pointing out to Job that though he is surrounded by God’s witness to him of His glory, Job is largely oblivious. In Job’s case, this is not due to hardness of heart, as in Romans 1:18-21; Job is the most righteous man around (Job 1:8). It is due to Job’s limitations as a human.

Every human is surrounded with a multitude of creative miracles. God’s creation inundates us with the witness of His glory. As Psalm 19:1-4 says, the entire creation constantly speaks of His glory. We can stop and notice. We can appreciate it. But we cannot fully comprehend it. And even the most appreciative of humans must eventually focus on a task at hand, and while doing so, we cannot simultaneously retain a comprehensive perspective. This again speaks of our finiteness.

But God is infinite. He holds at once all perspectives that are. God continues, now turning to the eagle, “Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up And makes his nest on high?” (v. 27)

The eagle’s mounting up in flight is a creature doing what it was made to do, rising on heat currents to a height far above where humans dwell. The nest on high highlights security and perspective that come from elevation, not from walls or locks. The Hebrew word translated mounts up is also rendered “exalted,” “higher,” and “upward.” Interestingly, when this word is applied to humans, it is translated with words like “proud” and “haughty” (Psalm 131:1, Proverbs 18:12). The eagle nests and flies to great heights.

Does Job command the eagle? Kings command armies; employers command teams of people. But no human voice sends an eagle skyward or tells it where to build. God invites Job to consider this perspective: If Job cannot command the eagle, what makes him think he can command God? Job earlier expressed confidence God would change His mind if He understood what Job had to tell Him, as though God did not already know (Job 23:2-7). God is inviting Job to alter his perspective; to seek, understand, and apply God’s perspective rather than imposing his own upon his creator.

The Lord adds further detail to the activities of the eagle, none of which involve a command from Job or any other human:

• On the cliff he dwells and lodges, Upon the rocky crag, an inaccessible place (v. 28).
• From there he spies out food; His eyes see it from afar (v. 29).
• His young ones also suck up blood; And where the slain are, there is he (v. 30).

God places creatures where they can thrive, even if the spot looks impossible to others. He can do the same with us. Job’s “cliff” felt like a place of exposure and fear; God shows that for His creatures, high rocks can be a home. David sang the same truth: “The Lord is my rock and my fortress” (Psalm 18:2). What is inaccessible to us is not inaccessible to God.

There is comfort tucked inside these verses. God is not limited to gentle valleys to keep His people safe. He uses hard places as secure ones. Jesus called Himself the rock on which His church would stand (Matthew 16:18). If the Lord can enable an eagle to lodge on a crag, He can hold Job—and us—steady where footing seems impossible.

The eagle’s vision is legendary—his eyes see things from afar. He is able to fix on movement at a great distance and dive with accuracy. The God who equips His creatures with what they need to live the life He assigned will all the more care for those He made in His image. And just as all the beneficial activities of the eagle occur without aid from Job, so it is with humanity; all God does is intentional and includes being informed from all possible perspectives.

Job is learning that God’s provision often begins with perspective. The eagle sees farther because of where it dwells and how it was made. In our lives, God grants spiritual sight through His word and Spirit so we can discern what we need to do (Psalm 119:105; James 1:5). The answer to confusion is not always “do more,” but often “see better” by drawing near to the Lord.

Even in a fallen world that includes violence and loss, God is not absent. He rules there, too. His young ones also suck up blood; And where the slain are, there is he reminds us that God is present even in death. Although death entered the world through sin, it is through death that God brings life. The life of the baby eagles is nurtured through the death of others. Ultimately, it is through the death of Jesus that all things will be put to right.

At the cross, Jesus stepped into the world’s worst setting—where “the slain are”—and through His death and resurrection turned the place of loss into the doorway of life (Hebrews 10:8-10). The God who governs hawks and eagles is the God who redeems. Job, along with us, is being led to rest in that God, whose wisdom encompasses wind, rock, distance, and the valley of the shadow of death. The creator of all who are in God’s “zoo” also tends and cares for and sustains all He made.

For believers, we can hold to the promise that God created good works for us to walk in, so we have an assigned job to do and the gifting to accomplish it (Ephesians 2:10). Just as God endowed the eagle with a gifting to live its life, so He gives to all who believe. It is not just the animals God created with a purpose, all who are new creations in Christ have a purpose in which to walk. We are all invited to learn these lessons from Job. We are offered the hope that if we will learn from others we will not have to learn through making the same mistakes (1 Corinthians 10:11-13).