to lie alongside (i.e. in wait) · interrogative particle + verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
prey
טָ֑רֶףTa.ref
H2964
something torn · noun, common masculine singular absolute
lion
לְלָבִ֣יאle.la.Vi'
H3833
to roar · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
fill
תְּמַלֵּֽאte.ma.Le'
H4390
to fill or (intransitively) be full of · verb, piel imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
appetite
וְחַיַּ֖תve.chai.Yat
H2416
alive · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular construct
lions
כְּפִירִ֣יםke.fi.Rim
H3715
a village (as covered in by walls) · noun, common masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 104:21 The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.
Job 4:10-11 The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.
Psalms 34:10 The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.
Psalms 145:15-16 The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 38:25–end
Hitherto God had put such questions to Job as were proper to convince him of his ignorance and short-sightedness. Now he comes, in the same manner, to show his impotency and weakness. As it is but little that he knows, and therefore he ought not to arraign the divine counsels, so it is but little that he can do, and therefore he ought not to oppose the proceedings of Providence. Let him consider what great things God does, and try whether he can do the like, or whether he thinks himself an equal match for him.
I. God has thunder, and lightning, and rain, and frost, at command, but Job has not, and therefore let him not dare to compare himself with God, or to contend with him. Nothing is more…
At Job 38:39-39:30, the instincts of animals. Is it thou that givest it the instinct to hunt its prey? (Psa 104:21).
appetite--literally, "life," which depends on the appetite" (Job 33:20).
Adam Clarke on Job 38:39
Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? - Rather the lioness, or strong lion. Hast thou his instinct? Dost thou know the habits and haunts of such animals as he seeks for his food? Thou hast neither his strength, his instinct nor his cunning. In the best Hebrew Bibles, the thirty-ninth chapter begins with this verse, and begins properly, as a new subject now commences, relating to the natural history of the earth, or the animal kingdom; as the preceding chapter does to astronomy and meteorology.
John Gill on Job 38:39
Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion?.... From meteors the Lord passes to animals, beasts, and birds, wherefore some here begin the thirty ninth chapter, which only treats of such; and he begins with the lion, the strongest among beasts, and most fierce; cruel, and voracious; and asks, who hunts his prey for him? Not man, who cannot; and if he could, durst not: but the Lord does; and, according to some writers (x), he has provided a small creature, between a fox and a wolf, called a jackal; which goes before the lion, and hunts the prey for him. And could this be understood particularly of the old lion, as Cocceius and others, naturalists (y) observe, that young lions hunt for the old ones,…
The Church Fathers
"Will you find the lion's food, will you appease the hunger of the dragon? This applies to the demon. "You shall trample on the lion and the dragon," 1 because of his treachery and his rage. All his angels are thus compared to the lion and the dragon. This one finds their food and soothes their hunger, which delivers to their power all the men convinced of impiety. They would no doubt wish to be ignorant of their impious life; but appearing before God, they can no longer escape the power of the devil and his angels, whose pernicious counsel they have followed.
Wilt thou seize the prey for the lioness, and fill the soul of her whelps? 25. She is doubtless that lioness, of which Job was saying, when he saw proud Judaea passed over by the preaching of the Church; The children of the dealers have not trodden it, nor hath the lioness passed through it. [Job 28, 8] The Lord therefore seizes the prey for this lioness, to fill the soul of her whelps, because for the increase of this Church, He has carried off many from the Gentile world, and has, by the gain of souls, satisfied the ravenous wishes of the Apostles. For they are in truth called whelps from the tenderness of their mind, and the weakness of their fear, because, after the Lord had suffered, they used to sit with closed doors, as is written of them; When it was late on that day, the first of the week, and the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst of them. [John 20, 19]
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Lion, The · God provides for — God provides for
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
39 Dost thou hunt for the prey of the lioness
And still the desire of the young lions,
40 When they couch in the dens,
Sit in the thicket lying in wait for prey?
41 Who provideth for the raven its food,
When its young ones cry to God,
They wander about without food?
On the wealth of the Old Testament language in names for the lion, vid., on Job 4:10. לביא can be used of the lioness; the more exact name of the lioness is לביּה, for לביא is = לבי, whence לבאים, lions, and לבאות, lionesses. The lioness is mentioned first, because she has to provide for her young ones (גּוּרים); then the lions that are still young, but yet are left to themselves, כּפירים. The phrase מלּא חיּה (comp. חיּה of life…
heart . . . mind: These words can also be translated ibis . . . rooster. The Egyptians thought the ibis was wise about the flooding of the Nile, the most important seasonal event in Egypt; and Israel’s rabbis thought the rooster could forecast rain or that its crow distinguished day from night. The idea would then be Who taught the ibis and the rooster? See also Ps 51:6; Prov 2:6; Jas 1:5, 17.
Rashi on Job 38:38
When the dust was poured On the day that I poured the dust.
into a mass for the foundation of the world, into its midst.
and the clods cleaved together around it on all sides, until its length and width were filled.
