Job 12:7 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee If thou observest the beasts, and their properties, actions, and events, from them thou mayest learn this lesson: namely, that which Zophar had uttered with so much pomp and gravity, (Job 11:7-9,) concerning God's unsearchable wisdom, almighty power, and absolute sovereignty: thou dost not need, says Job, to go into heaven or hell to know it; but thou mayest learn it even from the brute creatures. The beasts of the earth, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, all animals, and even plants, fruits, and flowers, are daily and hourly evidences to us, of the being and infinite perfections of God. The wonderful contrivance and admirable mechanism manifested in their formation, the preparation made for their wants, the exact adaptation of their organs to the particular mode of life for which they are intended; the wonderful regularity observed in their propagation: these things as plainly tell us, they are the work of God, as if they all had intelligible voices and declared it to us. Some commentators suppose that Job referred here to the greater and stronger brute creatures, preying on the lesser and weaker, as a fact illustrative of his argument respecting the power and prosperity of robbers, oppressors, and tyrants; and to the inferior animals in general, ministering to the pride, luxury, and indulgence of ungodly men; the earth and its richest produce being their property, and all nature drudging, as it were, to gratify their lusts. But the following verses seem rather to lead to the interpretation first mentioned, which certainly is the more instructive use of the words.