NJPS (New Jewish Publication Society
translation 1999): from the Kethubim
Do you know the season when the mountain
goats give birth?
Can you mark the time when the hinds calve?
Can you count the month they must complete?
Do you know the season they give birth,
When they couch to bring forth their offspring,
To deliver their young?
Their young are healthy; they grow up in the
open;
They leave and return no more.
Who sets the wild ass free?
Who loosens the bonds of the onager [untamed
creature of the desert] Whose home I have
made the wilderness, The salt land his
dwelling-place? He scoffs at the tumult of
the city, Does not hear the shouts of the driver.
He roams the hills for his pasture;
He searches for any green thing.
Would the wild ox agree to serve you?
Would he spend the night at your crib?
Can you hold the wild ox by ropes to
the furrow?
Would he plow up the valleys behind you?
Would you rely on his great strength
And leave your toil to him?
Would you trust him to bring in the seed
And gather it in from your threshing floor?
The wing of the ostrich beats joyously;
Are her pinions and plumage like
the stork's? She leaves her eggs on the
ground, Letting them warm in the dirt,
Forgetting they may be crushed underfoot,
Or trampled by a wild beasts.
Her young are cruelly abandoned as if they
were not hers; Her labor is in vain for lack
of concern.
For God deprived her of wisdom,
Gave her no share of understanding,
Else she would soar on high,
Scoffing at the horse and its rider.
Do you give the horse his strength?
Do you clothe his neck with a mane?
Do you make him quiver like locusts,
His majestic snorting [spreading] terror?
He paws with force, he runs with vigor,
Charging into battle.
He scoffs at fear; he cannot be frightened;
He does not recoil from the sword.
A quiverful of arrows whizzes by him,
And the flashing spear and the javelin.
Trembling with excitement, he swallows
the land; He does not turn aside at the
blast of the trumpet.
As the trumpet sounds, he says, 'Aha!'
From afar he smells the battle,
The roaring and shouting of the officers.
Is it by your wisdom that the hawk grows pinions,
Spreads his wings to the south?
Does the eagle soar at your command,
Building his nest high, Dwelling in the rock,
Lodging upon the fastness of a jutting rock?
From there he spies out his food;
From afar his eyes see it.
His young gulp blood;
Where the slain are, there is he.
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