They bow themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast out their offspring.
All Commentaries on Job 39:3 Go To Job 39
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
47. For they roar in truth, whilst by bending themselves down, they bring forth the souls of their hearers in the conversation of light; because they cannot release us from eternal punishments, except by tears and pain. For holy preachers sow in tears now, that they may afterwards reap a crop of joys. They are now like hinds in the pangs of bringing forth, that they may afterwards be fruitful in spiritual offspring. For, to speak of one out of many, I see Paul, like a hind, uttering roarings of great pain in his pangs of birth. For he says, My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, till Christ be formed in you, I desire to be with you now, and to change my voice, since I am perplexed for you. [Gal. 4, 19. 20.] Lo, he wishes to change his voice in his child-birth, that the voice of preaching may he turned into the roaring of pain. He wishes to change his voice, because those whom he had already brought forth by preaching, he was again bringing forth with groans in forming them anew. What a roaring did this travailing hind utter, when he was compelled to exclaim to these same persons, returning after him, saying, O senseless Galatians! who hath bewitched you? and are ye so foolish, that when ye have begun in the Spirit, ye are now made perfect by the flesh? [Gal. 3, 1. ib. 3] Or certainly; Ye did run well; who hindered you that ye should not obey the truth? [Gal. 5, 7] What a roaring was there in the birth-pains of this hind, which brought forth with so many difficulties her young so long conceived, and which knew they had returned, when at length brought forth, to the womb of wickedness? Let us consider what pain, what labour she suffered, who after she had had strength to bring forth what she had conceived, was, again, obliged to resuscitate them when dead.
48. But it must be particularly observed, that these hinds bow down to bring forth; doubtless, because they would not have strength to bring forth, if they were standing erect. For unless holy preachers were to come down from that boundlessness of inward contemplation which they embrace, by bending, as it were, to our infirmity, in the humblest preaching, they would surely never beget sons in the faith. For they could not benefit us, if they continued in the uprightness of their own height. But let us see the hind bending herself to bring forth. It says, I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal; as unto babes in Christ, I have given you milk and not meat. [1 Cor. 3, 1. 2.] And presently it mentions the causes of this bending, For hitherto ye were not able, neither yet now are ye able. [ibid.] But this hind, which has been bent on our account, let us, I pray you, behold erect says; We speak wisdom among them that are perfect. [1 Cor. 2, 6] And again, Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God. [2 Cor 5, 13] But when it is beside itself to God, we do not at all understand its transport. It therefore bows down to us, in order to gain us. Whence it fitly subjoins in that place, Whether we be sober, it is for your cause. [ibid.] For if holy men were to choose to preach to us those things which they hear, when they are intoxicated with heavenly contemplation, and did not rather temper their knowledge with some moderation and sobriety, who could receive those streams of the heavenly fount, in the still contracted channel of his understanding? But these bended hinds are called elsewhere ‘heavens,’ of which it is said, Bow thy heavens, O Lord, and come down. [Ps. 144, 5] For when the heavens are bowed down, the Lord descends, because, when holy preachers bend themselves in their preaching, they pour the knowledge of the Godhead into our hearts. For the Lord would not at all descend to us, if His preachers were to remain inflexible in the rigour of contemplation. The heavens are therefore bowed down, for the Lord to descend, the hinds are bent, for us to be born in the new light of faith. These bended hinds are in the Song of Songs called the breasts of the Bride, as it is written, Thy breasts are better than wine. [Cant. 1, 2] For they are the breasts, which, fixed on the casket of the bosom, feed us with milk; because they themselves clinging to the secrets of loftiest contemplation nourish us with subtle preaching. In order therefore to bring us back from eternal groaning and pain, the hinds are now bent down, and utter roarings as they bring forth. But because those very persons who are born by the holy preaching of fathers, sometimes precede their teachers in suffering, so that while these are still remaining in this life, they themselves are already consummated by martyrdom.
