Job 39:18 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

What time she lifteth up herself on high Or, as Dr. Shaw more properly renders this clause, When she raiseth herself up to run away, namely, from her pursuers. For which purpose she stretches out her neck and legs, both which are very tall, lifts up her head and body, and spreads her wings; she scorneth the horse and his rider She despiseth them on account of her greater swiftness; for though she cannot fly, because of her great bulk, yet by the aid of her wings she runs so fast, that horsemen cannot overtake her. Xenophon says, Cyrus's horsemen, who were able to run down wild asses and wild goats, could never take ostriches. See Bochart. “When these birds are surprised,” says Dr. Shaw, “by persons coming suddenly upon them, while feeding in some valley, or behind some rocky or sandy eminence in the deserts, they will not stay to be curiously viewed and examined. Neither are the Arabs ever dexterous enough to overtake them, even when they are mounted upon their jinse, or horses. They afford them an opportunity only of admiring at a distance their extraordinary agility, and the stateliness, likewise, of their motions, the richness of their plumage, and the great propriety there was of ascribing to them an expanded, quivering wing. Nothing, certainly, can be more beautiful and entertaining than such a sight. The wings, by their repeated, though unwearied, vibrations, equally serving them for sails and oars, while their feet, no less assisting in conveying them out of sight, are no less insensible of fatigue.” We have mentioned their great bulk, as unfitting them for flying, and shall here observe, from the Encyclop. Brit., that the “ostrich is, without doubt, the largest of all birds, being nearly eight feet in length, and, when standing upright, from six to eight feet in height. We are told, in the Gentleman's Magazine, (vol. 20. page 356,) that two ostriches were shown in London in the year 1750, the male of which was ten feet in height, and weighed 3 cwt. and 1 qr. But, though usually seven feet high from the top of the head to the ground, from the back it is only four, so that the head and neck are above three feet long. One of the wings, without the feathers, is a foot and a half; and being stretched out with the feathers is three feet.”