Job 38:36
Who hath put wisdom in the heart of man? or who gave the cock understanding?
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quis posuit in visceribus hominis sapientiam ? vel quis dedit gallo intelligentiam ?
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τίς δὲ ἔδωκεν γυναιξὶν ὑφάσματος σοφίαν ἢ ποικιλτικὴν ἐπιστήμην;
- Hebrew (WLC)
- מִי שָׁ֭ת בַּטֻּח֣וֹת חָכְמָ֑ה א֤וֹ מִֽי נָתַ֖ן לַשֶּׂ֣כְוִי בִינָֽה
Haydock's commentary
Understanding. That is, to distinguish the hours of the night. (Challoner)
Septuagint, "Who gave to women the knowledge of the loom, and the art of embroidering?" (Haydock)
It was the part of women to weave, as appears from the conduct of queen Penelope. But the best interpreters translate, "Who has placed wisdom in the reins, or who hath given understanding to the heart," or soul? (Calmet)
God gives wisdom to man, and an instinct to cocks, (Haydock) or the skill, of which the former is deprived, (Worthington) to know the approach of day. (Du Hamel)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Gregory Nazianzen The Second Theological Oration
XXIV. Look also at the fishy tribe gliding through the waters, and as it were flying through the liquid element, and breathing its own air, but in danger when in contact with ours, as we are in the waters; and mark their habits and dispositions, their intercourse and their births, their size and their beauty, and their affection for places, and their wanderings, and their assemblings and departings, and their properties which so nearly resemble those of the animals that dwell on land; in some cases community, in others contrast of properties, both in name and shape. And consider the tribes of birds, and their varieties of form and colour, both of those which are voiceless and of songbirds. …
St Gregory the Great The Book of Pastoral Rule, That deep things ought not to be preached at all to weak souls
But the preacher should know how to avoid drawing the mind of his hearer beyond its strength, lest, so to speak, the string of the soul, when stretched more than it can bear, should be broken. For all deep things should be covered up before a multitude of hearers, and scarcely opened to a few. For hence the Truth in person says, Who, thinkest thou, is the faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord has appointed over his household, to give them their measure of wheat in due season? ( Luke xii. 42 ). Now by a measure of wheat is expressed a portion of the Word, lest, when anything is given to a narrow heart beyond its capacity, it be spilt. Hence Paul says, I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. As it were to babes in Christ, I have given you milk to drink, and not meat ( 1 Cor. iii. 1, 2 ). …