Ever Heard of An Onager?

There are more important things here, but it's kind of interesting.

In the last chapter, God reminded Job of the universe’s vastness. Today, he focuses down on smaller, but no lesser remarkable things, mostly the phenomena of the animal kingdom. Have you even ever heard of an onager?¹

Regardless, the message is the same: “Job, there’s a lot going on that you don’t know about.”

On the one hand, it might seem to lack compassion. And perhaps if God’s response to Job ended with only these grand statements about creation, it would be. But hang on, more is coming.

In Luke, we’re reading a section of an interesting back-and-forth within Jesus’ story. Luke will show us something remarkable, even cosmic—feeding a multitude with very little or standing on a mountain alongside men long since dead. But then, almost as quickly, he pulls it back and reminds us that Jesus’ call is not just to witness the extraordinary, but to live a life marked by sacrifice and compassion.

It’s an interesting intersection in these two if we think about it. God speaks to Job from the vastness of creation, reminding him that the world is bigger, wilder, and less controllable than he can grasp. Jesus, on the other hand, steps into that very world not to explain it, but to feed people within it and call others to follow him through it. One expands our sense of how much we don’t know; the other shows us what to do anyway. We may not understand the depths of creation or the reasons behind suffering, but we are still invited to participate - to trust, to give, and to walk the path of self-giving love, even when we cannot see the whole picture.

That’s a bit of a relief to me. You?

Luke 9:12-27

When the day was almost over, the Twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away so that they can go to the nearby villages and countryside and find lodging and food, because we are in a deserted place.”

He replied, “You give them something to eat.”

But they said, “We have no more than five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for all these people.” (They said this because about five thousand men were present.)

Jesus said to his disciples, “Seat them in groups of about fifty.” They did so, and everyone was seated. He took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, blessed them, and broke them and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. Everyone ate until they were full, and the disciples filled twelve baskets with the leftovers.

Once when Jesus was praying by himself, the disciples joined him, and he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”

They answered, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others that one of the ancient prophets has come back to life.”

He asked them, “And what about you? Who do you say that I am?”

Peter answered, “The Christ sent from God.”

Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell this to anyone. He said, “The Human One must suffer many things and be rejected—by the elders, chief priests, and the legal experts—and be killed and be raised on the third day.”

Jesus said to everyone, “All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them. But all who lose their lives because of me will save them. What advantage do people have if they gain the whole world for themselves yet perish or lose their lives? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Human One will be ashamed of that person when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. I assure you that some standing here won’t die before they see God’s kingdom.”

Job 39

Do you know when mountain goats give birth;
do you observe the birthing of does?
Can you count the months of pregnancy;
do you know when they give birth?
They crouch, split open for their young,
send forth their offspring.
Their young are healthy; they grow up in the open country,
leave and never return.

Who freed the wild donkey,
loosed the ropes of the onager
to whom I gave the desert as home,
his dwelling place in the salt flats?
He laughs at the clamor of the town,
doesn’t hear the driver’s shout,
searches the hills for food
and seeks any green sprout.

Will the wild ox agree to be your slave,
or will it spend the night in your crib?
Can you bind it with a rope to a plowed row;
will it plow the valley behind you?
Will you trust it because its strength is great
so that you can leave your work to it?
Can you rely on it to bring back your grain
to gather into your threshing floor?

The ostrich’s wings flap joyously,
but her wings and plumage are like a stork.
She leaves her eggs on the earth,
lets them warm in the dust,
then forgets that a foot may crush them
or a wild animal trample them.
She treats her young harshly as if they were not hers,
without worrying that her labor might be in vain;
God didn’t endow her with sense,
didn’t give her some good sense.
When she flaps her wings high,
she laughs at horse and rider.

Did you give strength to the horse,
clothe his neck with a mane,
cause him to leap like a locust,
his majestic snorting, a fright?
He paws in the valley, prances proudly,
charges at battle weapons,
laughs at fear, unafraid.
He doesn’t turn away from the sword;
a quiver of arrows flies by him,
flashing spear and dagger.
Excitedly, trembling, he swallows the ground;
can’t stand still at a trumpet’s blast.
At a trumpet’s sound, he says, “Aha!”
smells the battle from afar,
hears officers’ shouting and the battle cry.

Is it due to your understanding that the hawk flies,
spreading its wings to the south?
Or at your command does the eagle soar,
the vulture build a nest on high?
They dwell on an outcropping of rock,
their fortress on rock’s edge.
From there they search for food;
their eyes notice it from afar,
and their young lap up blood;
where carcasses lie, there they are.

Prayer

God,

In the midst of so much I do not know and cannot control, your world is wider, wilder, and more intricate than I can grasp. As a teenager and young adult, I wanted to grasp such things. But I’m growing more comfortable with living in the simple.

So teach me to trust you in what I cannot see, and to remain faithful in what I can. When I am overwhelmed by the unknown, ground me in the simple call to love, to give, and to follow.

By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.

1. I’ve read this chapter many times before in my life, but I’ve never heard of the onager (verse 5). I’ve spent way more time this morning reading about horses, donkeys, asses, and onagers than I ever imagined I would. Who knew there was a wild animal something between a horse and a donkey that once roamed all of the Middle East, but now is relegated to a small portion of Asia? Apparently they are really fast and haven’t really been successfully domesticated.

The reason I’ve not heard it before is likely because the bible translations many of us grew up reading don’t include it (NIV, KJV, NRSV) , opting for ass, donkey, or wild donkey instead. But newer translations like the CEB and NKJV go ahead and separate the words (the Hebrew text includes two different words - donkey and onager.)

I’m not sure this will change your life, but it’s interesting.