God's Untamable Joy: The Wild Ox Text: Job 39:9-12
Introduction: The Folly of the Leash
We come now to the heart of God's whirlwind interrogation of Job. And we must understand what is happening here. Job has been demanding his day in court. He has been challenging the Almighty to show him the indictment, to explain the charges. He has, with all his protestations of integrity, effectively put God in the dock. And God, in His mercy, shows up. But He does not show up to be cross-examined. He shows up to conduct the cross-examination. God does not hand Job a legal brief; He takes him on a nature walk. A terrifying, humbling, whirlwind tour of a creation that does not answer to Job, does not care for his opinions, and does not exist to make him comfortable.
Our modern therapeutic age, which is simply the ancient age of pride in a lab coat, wants a God who can be managed. We want a God who fits neatly into our five-year plans, a God who can be harnessed to our self-improvement projects. We want a divine butler, a cosmic therapist, a celestial life coach. We want a God we can put on a leash. But the God of the Bible, the God who speaks from the storm, is not a tame God. He is not a safe God. He is the God who delights in the untamable, who rejoices in the wild, and who governs a universe brimming with creatures that would gore us without a second thought.
The point of this divine condescension is to dismantle Job's pride, and by extension, our own. God is not arguing that because He made a wild ox, His treatment of Job is therefore just. That is to miss the point entirely. He is demonstrating to Job the sheer, breathtaking scope of a reality that Job knows nothing about. Job, you have been speaking of things you do not understand, things too wonderful for you. You have been trying to run the universe from your armchair, and you don't even know how to manage a wild donkey or a mountain goat. Your problem is not a lack of information; your problem is a lack of humility. You have forgotten the infinite Creator/creature distinction.
In this passage, God brings Exhibit A: the wild ox. This is not your placid, cud-chewing bovine in the pasture. This is a beast of raw, untamable power. And through a series of sarcastic rhetorical questions, God is about to drive a stake through the heart of human arrogance.
The Text
Will the wild ox consent to serve you, Or will he spend the night at your manger? Can you bind the wild ox in a furrow with ropes, Or will he harrow the valleys after you? Will you trust him because his power is great And leave your labor to him? Will you believe him that he will return your seed of grain And gather it from your threshing floor?
(Job 39:9-12 LSB)
The Unwilling Servant (v. 9)
God begins by mocking man's utilitarian view of the world. We see a powerful animal and our first thought is, "How can I use it?"
"Will the wild ox consent to serve you, Or will he spend the night at your manger?" (Job 39:9)
The question is dripping with divine irony. "Will he consent?" The word implies a negotiated agreement, a voluntary submission. Job, do you think you can sit down with this beast and work out a contract? Do you think you can persuade him of the benefits of domestic life? The security, the regular meals, the shelter from the storm?
Of course not. The wild ox has no interest in your terms. He was not made for your service. He was made for God's glory, and his glory is expressed in his untamable freedom. He belongs to the one who made him, and he will not be bribed or cajoled into switching allegiances. He will not trade the mountain ranges for your manger. Your manger is a place of subjugation. It is where you feed the animals you own, the animals you have bent to your will. The domestic ox knows its owner's crib, as Isaiah says, but this creature will never spend the night there. He would smash your manger to splinters and then stomp on you for suggesting it.
This is a direct assault on the anthropocentric worldview. We think creation revolves around us. We think that if something isn't serving us directly, it's somehow wasted. God here is telling Job, and us, that He has purposes and delights that have absolutely nothing to do with our convenience. He made the wild ox for the sheer joy of its wildness. He loves its strength, its independence, its refusal to be tamed. And if you cannot see the glory in that, then your vision of glory is far too small. It is man-sized, and therefore pathetic.
The Unbreakable Will (v. 10)
If the wild ox cannot be persuaded, perhaps he can be forced. God anticipates this line of proud human reasoning and cuts it off.
"Can you bind the wild ox in a furrow with ropes, Or will he harrow the valleys after you?" (Job 39:10)
The image here is of agriculture, the very foundation of civilization. Man takes the chaotic earth and brings it into orderly submission, plowing straight lines, preparing the ground for seed. This is part of the dominion mandate. And we do it with domesticated animals, like the ox. We bind them with ropes and harnesses, and they lend us their strength.
But God asks, "Can you do this with my ox?" Can you put him in a harness? The very idea is laughable. The ropes would snap. The plow would be shattered. The man holding the ropes would be fortunate to escape with his life. This animal will not plow your fields. He will not follow you meekly down the furrow. He makes his own path. He is a law unto himself, because he obeys a higher law, the law of his own created nature, given to him by the God you are currently questioning.
There is a realm of creation that actively resists your attempts at control. This is by God's design. It exists to remind you of your place. You are not the sovereign. You are a creature, a vice-regent with a limited sphere of authority. There are powers in this world that you cannot bind, forces you cannot harness. This wild ox is a living, breathing sermon on the limits of human power. It is a rebuke to all the technocrats, the central planners, the social engineers who believe that if they just had enough power, enough data, enough control, they could bind the world in their furrows and make it harrow the valleys after them. God laughs at them, and points to the wild ox.
The Untrustworthy Power (v. 11-12)
God concludes this section by pressing the absurdity of relying on a power you cannot control.
"Will you trust him because his power is great And leave your labor to him? Will you believe him that he will return your seed of grain And gather it from your threshing floor?" (Job 39:11-12)
Here is the central problem. The wild ox is immensely powerful. His strength is far greater than that of a domesticated ox. So, from a purely pragmatic standpoint, he would be the ideal beast of burden. If you could just get him on your side, your productivity would go through the roof. What a temptation for fallen man. We are always trying to harness great power for our own ends, without submitting to the one who created that power.
But God asks the crucial questions. "Will you trust him?" "Will you believe him?" You see his great strength, but can you rely on it? Can you outsource your labor to him and walk away, confident the job will get done? Can you entrust your precious seed to him, believing he will faithfully bring in the harvest?
Absolutely not. His great power is matched only by his great untrustworthiness, from your perspective. He has no concept of your threshing floor. He has no interest in your harvest. His power is not at your disposal. To trust him would be the act of a fool. His strength is real, but it is not for you. It serves God's purpose, not yours.
This is a parable about the nature of the world. The world is full of immense powers, natural and spiritual, that are not aligned with our purposes. To try and harness them without reference to the God who sovereignly controls them all is the ultimate folly. Think of the raw power of the sea, the fury of a hurricane, the silent, invisible power of a virus, or the spiritual power of demonic forces. Will you trust them because their power is great? Will you leave your labor to them? If you do, you will be destroyed. All power that is not submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ is wild, untamable, and will ultimately turn on you and gore you.
The Wild Ox in Your Heart
This entire discourse is designed to humble Job, to show him that the universe is far bigger, wilder, and more complex than his tidy system of retributive justice allowed. But for us, who read this on the other side of the cross, the lesson goes even deeper. The wild ox is not just an external creature; he is a picture of the fallen human heart.
Is not the unregenerate heart a wild ox? Will it consent to serve God? No, it is at enmity with God; it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Romans 8:7). Will it spend the night at God's manger, feeding on His word? No, it prefers the husks of the far country. Can you bind the sinful heart with the ropes of religion, or education, or self-help? You can try, but it will snap them all. It will not plow the straight furrows of righteousness.
And here is the key. Will you trust your own heart because its power is great? The power of our desires, our ambitions, our passions, is immense. Will you leave your spiritual labor to it? Will you believe that it will, on its own, bring a harvest of righteousness to God's threshing floor? If you do, you are a fool. "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool," the Proverb says (Proverbs 28:26). Your heart, left to itself, is a wild ox. It will not serve God. It will serve only itself, and in the end, it will trample you into the dust.
What, then, is the solution for such an untamable beast? It cannot be domesticated by human effort. It must be miraculously transformed. It must be given a new nature. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, the one who hovered over the waters of chaos in the beginning. He hovers over the chaos of the fallen heart, and when the Father speaks the word of the Gospel, "Let there be light," a new creation begins.
The Lord promises through Ezekiel, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 36:26). The untamable wild ox of the sinful nature is put to death with Christ on the cross. And in its place, He raises up a new man, one who now willingly, joyfully, consents to serve. He is yoked to Christ, and he finds that Christ's yoke is easy, and His burden is light. He now gladly spends the night at the Master's manger, feeding on the bread of life. He is bound by the cords of love in the furrows of obedience. And he can be trusted with the work of the kingdom, because the power at work in him is no longer his own wild, rebellious strength, but the mighty, resurrection power of the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone can tame the wild heart of man and bring all of creation to its appointed end, for His glory and for our good.