Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock
Which dwell in high and steep rocks, where no man can come; bring forth? Which they do with great difficulty, as is implied, Psalms 29:9, and observed by naturalists, and in which they have no help save from God only. “Vain man, who wouldest so fain pry into my secrets! Didst thou ever climb the rocks to see the wild goats bring forth? Or hast thou assisted at the hard labour of the hinds, and helped to ease them of their burdens?” Canst thou number the months that they fulfil, &c. “Dost thou know the moment of their conception? Or keepest an account when they will be delivered?” Patrick. The questions here, as Bochart argues, do not relate to a mere idle and speculative knowledge of the particular time when the wild goats bring forth, or the hinds calve, and the months they fulfil, (which by common observation might easily be found out,) but to the various circumstances thereof, and that divine and providential oversight and care by which God not only knows all things, but directs and governs them. For this reason, he supposes that the LXX interpreters render the clause, εφυλαξας δε ωδινας ελαφων, Hast thou observed, or guarded the bringing forth of the hinds? Without the custody of God, (as he argues,) who preserves with the utmost care whatever he has once created, this kind of wild goats must quickly fail, amidst the numberless dangers to which they are exposed, both from hunters and from savage beasts; not to mention how often the dams themselves bring their young into the utmost peril. To this he subjoins St. Chrysostom's observation, namely, how properly the word εφυλαξας is here applied, because the wild goat being always on the flight, in fear and agony, continually leaping and prancing about; why does it not produce mere abortions, instead of bringing any of its young to maturity? No other reason can be assigned than the wonderful providence of God, in the preservation of the dams and their young. We have also an account, in Bochart, from Aristotle, Pliny, &c., of the pregnant hinds' receiving great assistance in parturition from the herb seselis, to which they are directed by instinct, and the eating of which greatly forwards their delivery. To all which may be added what we read in Psalms 29:9, concerning thunder, or the voice of the Lord, which יחולל אילות, jecholel, aijaloth, (the very words in our text,) maketh the hinds to calve: that is, (as the same learned writer observes,) among the many wonderful effects of thunder this is one, that those wild beasts, which with difficulty bring forth their young at other times, upon the hearing of it are immediately delivered; the terror they are thereby thrown into being so great as to have a strong effect on those parts which have need to be relaxed. See Chappelow.