The Ibex Knows the Mountain

Scientists who study the Nubian ibex — the wild mountain goat of the Sinai Peninsula — have spent years puzzling over how the animal navigates cliffs that would kill a human mountaineer. These creatures routinely traverse rock faces that slope at 65 degrees, standing on ledges barely two inches wide, seemingly unbothered by the sheer drop below. The secret lies in the hoof itself. Each split hoof has a hard outer rim that grips the rock like a crampon, while the inner pad is soft and slightly concave — almost like a suction cup on smooth stone. The animal doesn't grip with fear. It grips by design.

What makes this remarkable is the terrain the ibex calls home. The Sinai landscape is harsh and stripped — rocky, dry, barren of comfort. There is no lush meadow, no easy path. And yet the ibex needs none of those things to move. It was built to thrive precisely in the desolate places.

Habakkuk 3:17-19 reads like that same stripped landscape. No figs. No grapes. No olives. No grain, no sheep, no cattle. Everything that sustains life has been taken. Yet the prophet refuses to collapse. "Yet I will rejoice in Yahweh," he declares. Not because conditions have improved, but because the Almighty Himself becomes his footing. "The Sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to tread on the heights."

Notice what God promises. Not a smoother path. A different kind of hoof.