Does the eagle mount up at your command, And make its 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?
- BSB Does the eagle soar at your command and make his 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 mount on high as the eagle, and though your nest is set among the stars, I will bring you down from there,” says Yahweh.
- Jer 49:16As for your terror, the pride of your heart has deceived you, O you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, who hold the height of the hill, though you should make your nest as high as the eagle, I will bring you down from there,” says Yahweh.
- Exod 19:4‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to myself.
- Prov 23:5Why do you set your eyes on that which is not? For it certainly sprouts wings like an eagle and flies in the sky.
- Lev 11:13“‘These you shall detest among the birds; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the vulture, and the black vulture,
- Ps 103:5who satisfies your desire with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
- Isa 40:31But those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.
- Hos 8:1“Put the trumpet to your lips! Something like an eagle is over Yahweh’s house, because they have broken 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.