Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?
The creature named in the question is the wild ox. The question asks whether a person can tie it with its harness in the plowed row and get it to drag the harrow through the lowlands behind him, in other words to tame and use it for field work. Its point is the boundary on human mastery over the living creatures God made. It belongs with the surrounding chapters that uphold the truth that God created the world and everything alive in it.
It is one of God's questions about the mysteries He has revealed in nature, mysteries that even people of the greatest intellect cannot grasp and the most profound scholar cannot solve. It was asked not in order to receive an answer but to draw attention to the deep mysteries of God and to teach the limitation of human wisdom, for the ordinary surroundings of daily life hold many things beyond the comprehension of finite beings. Along with other mysteries in divine revelation and in nature, it is given to command faith, displaying an infinity that remains beyond continual searching, inquiring, and learning. It teaches that God's infinite power is to be acknowledged as much in what He withholds from revelation as in what lies open to limited human understanding.
The creature named in the question is the wild ox. The question asks whether a person can tie it with its harness in the plowed row and get it to drag the harrow through the lowlands behind him, in other words to tame and use it for field work. Its point is the boundary on human mastery over the living creatures God made. It belongs with the surrounding chapters that uphold the truth that God created the world and everything alive in it.
It is one of God's questions about the mysteries He has revealed in nature, mysteries that even people of the greatest intellect cannot grasp and the most profound scholar cannot solve. It was asked not in order to receive an answer but to draw attention to the deep mysteries of God and to teach the limitation of human wisdom, for the ordinary surroundings of daily life hold many things beyond the comprehension of finite beings. Along with other mysteries in divine revelation and in nature, it is given to command faith, displaying an infinity that remains beyond continual searching, inquiring, and learning. It teaches that God's infinite power is to be acknowledged as much in what He withholds from revelation as in what lies open to limited human understanding.