"Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?"—Job xxxix. 27.
Jehovah is answering Job out of the whirlwind. He brings before him a grand panorama of external nature—the earth and sea, snow and hail, the Pleiades and the lightning—the wild goat, the wild ass, the ostrich, the hawk, and the eagle; and as the glorious pageant defiles before his eyes, he forces him to face and answer the question: Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him? He that reproveth God, let him answer. And Job's answer is all that could be desired: "Behold, I am vile: what shall I answer Thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth." The greatness of God in nature has taught man his own utter insignificance.
Doth the eagle mount up at thy command? No. All these pictures point man to God. They combine to illustrate the mind and thought of Him who formed them and cares for them. So that the conclusion of Ruskin is more than justified that the universe is not a mirror that reflects to proud self-love her own intelligence. It is a mirror that reflects to the devout soul the attributes of God.
I.—THE ROCK-DWELLING HABITS OF THE EAGLE.
"She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock and the strong place" (ver. 28). It is to this that Obadiah refers when he takes up his parable against the Edomites. They too were rock-dwellers, who had made for themselves houses and founded cities in the rocky fastnesses of Mount Seir. But they are reminded that the impregnable and inaccessible heights to which they have resorted will be no defence against Jehovah: "Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord." It is even added that Edom would become utterly desolate: "As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee, ... and there shall not be any remaining of the house of Esau." And if the testimony of modern travellers may be accepted, the desolation is mournful enough. In 1848 Miss Harriet Martineau visited Petra, the chief of these rock-cities, and describes it as follows: "Nowhere else is there desolation like that of Petra, where these rock doorways stand wide—still fit for the habitation of a multitude, but all empty and silent except for the multiplied echo of the cry of the eagle, or the bleat of the kid. No; these excavations never were all tombs. In the morning the sons of Esau came out in the first sunshine to worship at their doors, before going forth, proud as their neighbour eagles, to the chase; and at night the yellow fires lighted up from within, tier above tier, the face of the precipice" ("Eastern Life," vol. iii. 5).
The Edomite, alas, is gone, though the eagle is still left, and she fixes her habitation on the dizzy crag.
II.—THE ACUTENESS OF THE EAGLE'S SIGHT.
"From thence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar off" (ver. 29). The eye of a bird is a marvellous structure. It is a telescope and microscope combined. It has the power of compressing the lens to adapt it to varying distances; and is larger in proportion than the eye of quadrupeds. The kestrel hawk, for instance, feeds on the common field mouse; but this tiny creature is so like the colour of the soil, that a human eye could scarcely detect it at the distance of a few yards. The kestrel, however, has no such difficulty. Her telescopic eye sees it from the sky overhead, and like a bolt from the blue, she swoops down upon the helpless prey. No mistake is made as she nears the ground. Swiftly and almost instantaneously the telescope is compressed into the microscope, and the daring freebooter could pick up a pin.
The same power is possessed by the Griffon vulture or "eagle" of Holy Scripture. "Her eyes behold afar off." A dozen eagles may be soaring upwards in the sunlight, until they become mere specks against the blue of heaven, but they are carefully watching each other in their wheeling circles, and diligently scanning the desert below in the hope of discovering some prey. The moment the object is sighted, and even one bird has made a swoop downwards, the movement is detected by the one nearest, which immediately follows; while the second is followed by a third, and the third by a fourth, until in a few minutes, "wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." Their vast power of wing and acuteness of sight have led them to the prey.
And the lesson is not far to seek. In the Carlyle use of the word it emphasises the need of being able to see. "To the poet, as to every other, we say first of all, see. If you cannot do that, it is of no use stringing rhymes together and calling yourself a poet, there is no hope for you." And in religion it is the pure in heart that see God. If the inner eye be single, the whole body shall be full of light. The aged seer on Patmos saw into the heaven of heavens. Like Paul, he heard words not lawful to be uttered; and thus in the symbolism of the Christian Church, he is known as the New Testament eagle. He was the one who "saw more and heard more, but spake less than all the other disciples." But all the saints of God may soar and see in some measure as he did—