Job 39:8

Job 39:8 The range of the mountains [is] his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing.

Ver. 8. The range of the mountains is his pasture] There he keeps, probably, for fear of lions and other fierce creatures; and there he finds food and forage, such as doth not only appease his hunger, but excite his appetite; as if he were in some fat pasture.

And he searcheth out every green thing] Speeding better in his search than those asses of Hetruria, which, feeding upon green hemlock, are thereby laid for dead for three days; till half hileded by the countrymen, who take them for dead, they start up, and with a horrible noise run away in that pickle.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The range--literally, "searching," "that which it finds by searching is his pasture."

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 8. The range of the mountains] The mountains and desert places are his peculiar places of pasture; and he lives on any thing that is green, or any kind of vegetable production.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The range of the mountains is his pasture,.... It ranges about the mountains for food; it looks about for it, as the word signifies, and tries first one place and then another to get some, it having short commons there;

and he searcheth after every green thing; herb or plant, be it what it will that is green, it seeks after; and which being scarce in deserts and mountains, it searches about for and feeds upon it, wherever it can find it; grass being the peculiar food of these creatures, see Job 6:5; and which is observed by naturalists (x).

(x) Oppiani Cyneget. l. 3.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The range of the mountains is his pasture - The word rendered “range” יתור yâthûr, means properly a “searching out,” and then that which is obtained by search. The word “range” expresses the idea with sufficient exactness. The usual range of the wild ass is the mountains. Pallas, who has given a full description of the habits of the Onager, or wild ass, states, that it, especially loves desolate hills as its abode. “Acts of the Society of Sciences of Petersburg,” for the year 1777.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The range of the mountains; that which he searcheth out or findeth in the mountains. He prefers that mean provision and hardship with his freedom, before the fattest pastures with servitude. Why so weak and harmless a creature as the wild ass should be untamable, when the most savage lions and tigers have been tamed, and how there comes to be so vast a difference between the tame and the wild ass, thou canst give no reason, but must refer it wholly to my good pleasure; to which also thou shouldst upon the same grounds refer all the various methods of my providence and dealings with thee, and with other men, and not so boldly censure what thou dost not understand.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. Range of the mountains — יתור, rendered “range,” if a verbal noun may mean “that which is seen,” (on the mountain:) so Delitzsch and Umbreit. If a verb, it signifies, “He spies through the mountain,” as his pasturage. (Dillmann.) The celebrated naturalist Pallas observes that the wild ass is particularly fond of bare mountains. Thus closes a beautiful picture of the wondrous ranger of mountain and waste, who scorns the clamour of the city, and laughs at the driver with his long line of subject beasts. No wonder that the wild ass should stand as the type of sovereignty, and that kings, as Umbreit has shown, should not disdain to add his name to their own.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The range of the mountains is his pasture. By "mountains" we must here understand rocky ranges like the Sinjar and the mountains of Beloochistan, or again those of the Sinaitic peninsula. Wild asses do not frequent the regions which we commonly call mountainous. And he searcheth after every green thing; i.e. he seeks out the small patches of pasture which are to be found in such rocky regions.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mountains - He prefers that mean provision with his freedom, before the fattest pastures with servitude.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

He spies out the mountains for his pasture He personally spies out for himself a place of pasture.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.