Albert Barnes Commentary Job 38:41

"Who provideth for the raven his prey, When his young ones cry unto God, [And] wander for lack of food?" — Job 38:41 (ASV)

Who provides for the raven his food? The same thought is expressed in (Psalms 147:9),

He giveth to the beast his food,
And to the young ravens which cry.

Compare (Matthew 6:26). Scheutzer (on this passage) suggests that the reason why the raven is specified here rather than other birds is that it is an offensive bird, and that God means to state that no object, however regarded by humans, is beneath His notice. He carefully provides for the needs of all His creatures.

When his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat - Bochart observes that the raven expels the young from the nest as soon as they are able to fly. In this condition, being unable to obtain food by their own exertions, they make a croaking noise, and God is said to hear it, and to supply their needs. “Noyes.”

There are various opinions expressed regarding this subject by the rabbinical writers and by the ancients generally.

Eliezer (chapter 21) says that, “When the old ravens see the young coming into the world which are not black, they regard them as the offspring of serpents, and flee away from them, and God takes care of them.” Solomon says that in this condition they are nourished by the flies and worms that are generated in their nests, and the same opinion was held by the Arabian writers, Haritius, Alkuazin, and Damir. Among the fathers of the church, Chrysostom, Olympiodorus, Gregory, and Isidorus, supposed that they were nurtured by dew descending from heaven.

Pliny (Book 10, chapter 12) says that the old ravens expel the strongest of their young from the nest and compel them to fly. This is the time, according to many of the older commentators, when the young ravens are represented as calling upon God for food. See Scheutzer, Physica Sacra, on this passage, and Bochart, Hieroz., Part 2, Book 2, chapter 2. I do not know that there is now considered to be sufficient evidence to substantiate this fact regarding the manner in which ravens treat their young. All the circumstances of the passage before us will be met by the supposition that young birds seem to call upon God, and that He supplies their needs.

The last three verses in this chapter should not have been separated from the following.

The appeal in this is to the animal creation, and this is continued through the whole of the next chapter. The proper place for the division would have been at the close of (Job 38:38), where the argument from the great laws of the material universe was ended. Then an appeal commences to His works of a higher order—the realm of instinct and appetites, where creatures are governed by laws other than merely physical ones.