Does the eagle soar at your command and make his nest on high?
Parallel translations
- WEB Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up, and makes his nest on high?
- KJV Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?
- NKJV Does the eagle mount up at your command, And make its nest on high?
- NASB “Is it at your command that the eagle flies high, And makes his nest on high?
- NLT Is it at your command that the eagle rises to the heights to make its nest?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God asks whether the eagle mounts high and nests on the heights at Job's command. The eagle's lofty ways answer to God alone.
Overview
The eagle soaring upward and building its nest on inaccessible cliffs does so by God's ordering, not Job's command. The rhetorical question presses the point that Job neither directs nor sustains the natural world. As the speech nears its climax, God keeps confronting Job with creatures whose existence and habits proclaim a wisdom and dominion that are God's alone.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Obad 1:4Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, even from there I will bring you down,” declares the LORD.
- Jer 49:16The terror you cause and the pride of your heart have deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks, O occupiers of the mountain summit. Though you elevate your nest like the eagle, even from there I will bring you down,” declares the LORD.
- Exod 19:4‘You have seen for yourselves what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself.
- Prov 23:5When you glance at wealth, it disappears, for it makes wings for itself and flies like an eagle to the sky.
- Lev 11:13Additionally, you are to detest the following birds, and they must not be eaten because they are detestable: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture,
- Ps 103:5who satisfies you with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
- Isa 40:31But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.
- Hos 8:1Put the ram’s horn to your lips! An eagle looms over the house of the LORD, because the people have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 39:27 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.