When we domesticate animals for our benefit, we diminish their ability to fend for themselves.
There’s another lesson among God’s menagerie. Job had once owned a large number of animals—“his possessions were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys” (Job 1:3). Imagine that—11,500 animals for service across his vast estate! The San Diego Zoo, one of the largest in the world, has about the same number of animals. But all of Job’s animals would be considered domesticated, adapted by man for his own use. The Lord then explains to Job that some animals were designed by Him never to be tamed. If they were to survive in the most inhospitable regions of earth, “the barren land” (39:6), they must not look to man for help. First, He portrays the life cycle of the mountain goat and the deer. “Do you know the time when the wild mountain goats bear young? Or can you mark when the deer gives birth?” (v 1). That isn’t on most of our calendars. They have no assistants attending. “They bow down, they bring forth their young, they deliver their offspring. Their young ones are healthy, they grow strong with grain; they depart and do not return to them” (vv 3-4). As independent as are the parents, so the offspring. “Who set the wild donkey free…whose home I have made the wilderness?” (vv 5-6). “Will the wild ox be willing to serve you?…Can you bind the wild ox in the furrow with ropes? Or will he plow the valleys behind you?” (vv 9-10). In each case, the answer is clearly, No. And the point? In this world, there are forces beyond our control. Once fashioned by God to be lord of creation, fallen man no longer rules over most animals, let alone all the other forces at work in the world. So if we’re wise, we’ll happily yield to the God who does have control over everything.