Verses 5-8
Job 39:5-8 5 Who hath sent forth the wild ass free,
And who loosed the bands of the wild ass, 6 Whose house I made the steppe,
And his dwelling the salt country? 7 He scorneth the tumult of the city,
He heareth not the noise of the driver. 8 That which is seen upon the mountains is his pasture,
And he sniffeth after every green thing.
On the wild ass (not: ass of the forest).[1]
In Hebr. and Arab. it is פּרא (ferâ or himâr el-wahsh, i.e., asinus ferus), and Aram. ערוד; the former describes it as a swift-footed animal, the latter as an animal shy and difficult to be tamed by the hand of man; “Kulan” is its Eastern Asiatic name. lxx correctly translates: τίς δὲ ἐστιν ὁ ἀφεὶς ὄνον ἄγριον ἐλεύθερον. חפשׁי is the acc. of the predicate
- ↑ It is a dirty yellow with a white belly, single-hoofed and long-eared; its hornless head somewhat resembles that of the gazelle, but is much later; its hair has the dryness of the hair of the deer, and the animal forms the transition from the stag and deer genus to the ass. It is entirely distinct from the mahâ or baqar el-wahsh, wild ox, whose large soft eyes are so much celebrated by the poets of the steppe. This latter is horned and double-hoofed, and forms the transition from the stag to the ox distinct from the ri'm, ראם, therefore perhaps an antelope of the kind of the Indian nîlgau, blue ox, Portax tragocamelus. I have not seen both kinds of animals alive, but I have often seen their skins in the tents of the Ruwalâ. Both kinds are remarkable for their very swift running, and it is especially affirmed of the ferâ that no rider can overtake it. The poets compare a troop of horsemen that come rushing up and vanish in the next moment to a herd of ferâ. In spite of its difficulty and hazardousness, the nomads are passionately given to hunting the wild ass, and the proverb cited by the Kâmûs: kull es-sêd bigôf el-ferâ (every hunt sticks in the belly of the ferâ, i.e., compared with that, every other hunt is nothing), is perfectly correct. When the approach of a herd, which always consists of several hundred, is betrayed by a cloud of dust which can be seen many miles off, so many horsemen rise up from all sides in pursuit that the animals are usually scattered, and single ones are obtained by the dogs and by shots. The herd is called gemı̂le, and its leader is called ‛anûd (ענוּד),as with gazelles. - Wetzst.
