The range of the mountains is his pasture, He searches after every green thing.
Parallel translations
- KJV The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing.
- BSB He roams the mountains for pasture, searching for any green thing.
- NKJV The range of the mountains is his pasture, And he searches after every green thing.
- NASB “He explores the mountains of his pasture, And searches after every green thing.
- NLT The mountains are its pastureland, where it searches for every blade of grass.
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
The wild donkey ranges the mountains for pasture, seeking every green thing. God feeds it in the open wild.
Overview
The LORD describes the wild donkey roaming the hills in search of food. Far from any farmer, it is provided for by God. The verse completes the portrait of a free creature whose life depends entirely on the Creator's care.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Ps 145:15–16The eyes of all wait for you. You give them their food in due season.
- Ps 104:27–28These all wait for you, that you may give them their food in due season.
- Job 40:20–22Surely the mountains produce food for him, where all the animals of the field play.
- Job 40:15“See now, behemoth, which I made as well as you. He eats grass as an ox.
- Gen 1:29–30God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 39:8 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.