Jobchapter 1
22 verses · unknown · 10th century BC · Wisdom and poetry
One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them.
Introduction
unknown, Wisdom and poetry, Job Overview.
The Book of Job names no writer, and it sets its story in the land of Uz, among a people outside Israel, in an age before the Law. It opens in prose, as a story told to a listener, before the long poems begin. The hearer is given two scenes, one on earth and one in heaven, and learns something the man at the centre of the story is never told. Listen for the question asked in the heavenly court, because every later chapter turns on it. Keep the first scene in mind through all the speeches that follow.
Context
- Who
- Hearers in Israel who knew the story was set long before Moses, and who had suffering of their own to explain
- What
- A prose account of Job's piety and wealth, the accuser's challenge in the heavenly court, and the loss of Job's goods and children in one day.
- Where
- The land of Uz, east of Canaan toward Edom and north Arabia, and the court of heaven.
- When
- The text gives no date; the setting is read as the age of the patriarchs, about 2000 to 1800 BC on the traditional view, and the date of writing is unknown.
- Why
- To show the reader the question behind Job's suffering, whether a man serves God for nothing, before any speaker argues about it.
Historical context
Everything about Job's world is pre-Israelite, and the details are consistent. His wealth is counted in livestock and servants, not silver. He offers sacrifices himself, as head of his household, with no priest and no tabernacle anywhere in view, the way Abraham and Jacob worshipped. His lifespan runs past a century. No Law of Moses is mentioned, no covenant, no Israel. That is why the traditional reading places the events in the age of the patriarchs, even though the book never dates itself.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
Uz lay east or southeast of Canaan, in the direction of Edom and north Arabia; Lamentations connects Uz with Edom, and Job's friends come from places on that map. Out there a wealthy man ran a walled compound with tents and outbuildings, and his herds grazed at a distance under hired hands, which is exactly what makes them easy to raid.
The two raids in the chapter are ordinary crimes of that region. The Sabeans came up the caravan routes from southern Arabia; the Chaldeans were bands out of lower Mesopotamia who formed into three companies for a coordinated sweep, the standard way to hit spread-out herds before the alarm could travel. Neither raid needs a miracle. Fire from heaven and a desert windstorm collapsing a house are likewise things that happened.
The heaven scene is the strange part, and it should be. The 'sons of God' presenting themselves before the LORD is the divine council, the assembly of created spiritual beings through whom God administers his rule, a picture found again in 1 Kings 22 and the Psalms. The accuser is called 'the satan', a title with the definite article that means the adversary or prosecutor, an office in a royal court. Readers divide over whether the chapter is using a job description or a name; the plain sense is that the office and the person who fills it are the same one Scripture later calls Satan, and the scene shows him operating only within limits God sets and enforces.
Significance
The first hearers were let in on a secret Job never learns. The disasters have a cause that has nothing to do with Job's sin, and the question on the table is not whether Job is good but whether anyone loves God for nothing, whether faith survives when the payoff is removed.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
That reframes everything that follows. Every speech in the next thirty chapters is delivered by men who do not know what the audience knows, arguing about a case whose file they have never seen.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's table of synagogue readings gives this chapter no place. Probed for this lane, the site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts printed parashot total 0 and haftarah uses total 0 for Job, and no festival reading.
The chapter is met in study instead, and the corpus shows where. Its heaviest run of locators falls in one tractate of the Talmud, Bava Batra, at 15b, 16a and 16b, most of them from the sixth verse to the sixteenth. Rashi names the same pages himself (Rashi on Job 1:14:1). Midrash named for Torah portions stands beside them: Midrash Tanchuma at Vayikra 7:1, Mishpatim 11:4 and Beshalach 25:1, and Midrash Tanchuma Buber at Vayikra 15:1.
How it is read
Rashi carries most of the chapter, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. He opens with the plain sense. The land of Uz is the land of Aram, named for Uz the firstborn of Nahor (Rashi on Job 1:1:1).
He then sets two further readings beside it. In the first, Uz is Job himself and Buz is Elihu, so Elihu, who shatters Job's words, comes from his own family. Rashi gives the proverb for it: "From the very forest, the ax handle is formed." In the second, Uz is the land where men took counsel against God and built the tower. From God's coming down to see it, Rashi draws a rule for later courts, that "judges may not pass judgment except with eyewitnesses" (Rashi on Job 1:1:2). The three readings differ in kind: a place on the map, a family, and a lesson in law.
Malbim is quoted from Malbim's Job, translated by Jeremy I. Pfeffer (Ktav, 2003), which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. He reads the ten children as a shield and a fence around their father. He reads the herds that follow as the answer to a danger he names in four words: "Impoverished persons may crumble" (Malbim on Job 1:2:1 and 1:2:2).
The heavenly scene draws two readings of the day it happened. At the sixth verse Rashi says the day was Rosh Hashanah, when the Adversary was commanded to bring the merit and the guilt of all creatures (Rashi on Job 1:6:1). A note the corpus files under the twelfth verse gives another explanation. The day was the one on which the children began their round of feasting again at the eldest brother's house (Rashi on Job 1:12:1). One reading sets the scene on a day of judgment for the world, the other on a day in the family's own week.
The rest of Rashi's notes are close. When God speaks first, Scripture teaches manners, that "the greater one speaks first and permits the smaller one to reply" (Rashi on Job 1:7:1). The Adversary's two challenges are read as questions (Rashi on Job 1:9:1 and 1:11:1). Rashi reports the Sages in the Aggadah at Bava Batra 15b and 16a, that God gave Job's household a taste of the world to come in their ploughing (Rashi on Job 1:14:1). The messengers of loss were the Adversary's own, and "they first informed him of a small loss and later of a larger one" to provoke him to sin (Rashi on Job 1:17:1).
At the close Rashi reads the mother's womb two ways, as the earth from which man was taken or as Job's own mother (Rashi on Job 1:21:1). He ends on the chapter's verdict, that Job ascribed no blemish or unseemliness to God (Rashi on Job 1:22:1).
The corpus carries two further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Metzudat David on Job 1:13:1 and Ibn Ezra on Job 1:18:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited here by ref. On the first verse it holds Aggadat Bereshit 56:1, Avot DeRabbi Natan 2:5 and Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 2:1. On the second it holds Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayikra 15:1 and Midrash Tanchuma, Vayikra 7:1. On the third it holds Bava Batra 16b:6, Sifrei Zuta 11:1:1 and Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Yelamdeinu, Last Composition from Midrash Yelamdenu 40. On the fourth it holds Vayikra Rabbah 7:3, and on the fifth Jerusalem Talmud Shevuot 1:6:6 and Jerusalem Talmud Yoma 8:7:2.
The heavenly scene draws Bava Batra page by page. On the sixth verse the corpus holds Bava Batra 15b:12 and Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 44:12. On the seventh it holds Ein Yaakov, Yoma 8:12 and Jerusalem Talmud Shevuot 6:5:3. On the eighth it holds Bava Batra 15b:13 and Ein Yaakov, Bava Batra 1:35. On the ninth it holds Bava Batra 15b:15 and Midrash Tanchuma, Mishpatim 11:4. On the tenth it holds Bava Batra 15b:16 and Bereshit Rabbah 39:11, and on the eleventh Bava Batra 15b:17 and Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 25:1. On the twelfth it holds Bava Batra 16a:8.
The messengers carry the next run. On the fourteenth verse the corpus holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Exodus 21:37:5 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 7:10. On the fifteenth it holds Bava Batra 15b:7 and 15b:11. On the sixteenth it holds Bava Batra 16a:2 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 16:6. On the seventeenth it holds Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 102:5. On the eighteenth it holds Sifrei Devarim 318:2 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 945:1. On the nineteenth it holds Bereshit Rabbah 24:4 and Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 9:2:10.
Job's mourning and blessing close the run. On the twentieth verse the corpus holds Moed Katan 20b:17 and Jerusalem Talmud Moed Katan 3:7:16. On the twenty-first it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan 14:6 and Berakhot 60b:11. It also files Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 837:3 under a twenty-fourth verse, a number past the twenty-second, where its commentaries on this chapter end, and it is listed as the corpus prints it.
What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Job 1:1:1 to 1:22:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Malbim, Malbim on Job 1:2:1 and 1:2:2, Malbim's Job, trans. Jeremy I. Pfeffer, Ktav, 2003, reported CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Job 1:13:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Job 1:18:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/job/1.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, printing no portion, no Haftarah and no festival reading for this book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Job the Blameless Man of Uz
Job 1:1-3
a man in the land of Uz: Uz sits in the Edomite orbit, the land Lamentations links with the daughter of Edom. Job is a patriarch outside Israel from the first line. The words "blameless and upright, fearing God and shunning evil" describe moral completeness and integrity, the sense Gill and Henry both give them.
Job 1:1
“Arabia-Deserta was on the east, Arabia-Petræa on the west, and Arabia-Felix on the south. Job--The name comes from an Arabic word meaning "to return," namely, to God, "to repent," referring to his end [EICHORN]; or rather from a Hebrew word signifying one to whom enmity was shown, "greatly tried" [GESENIUS].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Job 1:1
“Perfect - Not legally or exactly, but as to his sincere intentions, hearty affections, and diligent endeavours to perform all his duties to God and men. Upright - Hebrew. right, exact and regular in all his dealings, with men; one of an unblameable conversation.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
ConnectionsJob 42:7
He had seven sons and three daughters: Seven sons and three daughters is the family Job loses in verse 19 and receives again at Job 42:13. Barnes notes that the daughters of the second family are named at Job 42:14, while these first children go unnamed. Matthew Henry counts children among the blessings of a godly house.
Job 1:2
“And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters - The same number was given to him again after these were lost, and his severe trials had been endured; see Job 42:13. Of his second family the names of the daughters are mentioned, Job 42:14. Of his first, it is remarkable that neither the names of his wife, his sons nor his daughters are recorded. The Chaldee, however, on what authority is unknown, says that the name of his wife was דינה dı̂ynâh, Job 2:9.”
Job was the greatest man of all the people of the East: Barnes notes that the Hebrew word for Job's possessions means anything acquired, and a nomad's wealth stood in flocks and herds. The Targum, as Clarke reports, divides the sheep, camels, oxen and donkeys among the sons, daughters, Job and his wife. The people of the East lived in northern Arabia.
Job 1:3
“Camels - Camels in these parts were very numerous, and very useful, both for carrying burdens in these hot and dry countries, as being able to endure thirst much better than other creatures, and for service in war. Asses - He-asses also may be included in this expression, because the greatest part of them (from which the denomination is usually taken) were she asses.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Job 1:3
“His substance - Margin, or “cattle.” The word used here מקנה mı̂qneh is derived from קנה qânâh, to gain or acquire, to buy or purchase, and properly means anything acquired or purchased - property, possessions, riches. The wealth of nomadic tribes, however, consisted mostly in flocks and herds, and hence the word in the Scripture signifies, almost exclusively, property in cattle.”
Job 1:4-5
take turns holding feasts in their homes: Job's sons take turns holding feasts, and Job rises early to offer burnt offerings for them in case they have "cursed God in their hearts". Clarke notes the same care returns inverted in chapter 42, when the friends need a sacrifice offered on their behalf and Job prays for them.
Job 1:4
“Feasted in their houses, every one his day - It is likely that a birthday festival is here intended. When the birthday of one arrived, he invited his brothers and sisters to feast with him; and each observed the same custom.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The Hebrew verb behind cursed God is the ordinary word for bless, and the same word returns at verse 11 and Job 2:5. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown trace it to kneeling, the posture for invoking a blessing or curse. Clarke sets the offering at the close of the feasting year.
Job 1:5
“And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about - Dr. Good renders this, “as the days of such banquets returned.” But this is not the idea intended. It is, when the banquets had gone round as in a circle through all the families, “then” Job sent and sanctified them. It was not from an anticipation that they “would” do wrong, but it was from the apprehension that they “might” have sinned.”
3 more voices on this verse
Job 1:5
“May be - His zeal for God's glory, and his true love to his children, made him jealous. Cursed - Not in a gross manner, which it is not probable either that they should do, or that Job should suspect it concerning them, but despised or dishonoured God; for both Hebrew and Greek words signifies cursing, are sometimes used to note only, reviling or setting light by a person.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Job 1:5
“Still he was the priest of the family, and at his altar they all attended, valuing their share in his prayers more than their share in his estate. Parents cannot give grace to their children (it is God that sanctifies), but they ought by seasonable admonitions and counsels to further their sanctification.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Job 1:5
“GESENIUS says, the original sense is to "kneel," and thus it came to mean bending the knee in order to invoke either a blessing or a curse. Cursing is a perversion of blessing, as all sin is of goodness. Sin is a degeneracy, not a generation.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The Adversary Comes Before the Throne
Job 1:6-7
the sons of God came to present themselves: The phrase "sons of God" falls at five places, Genesis 6:2 and 6:4 and Job 1:6, 2:1 and 38:7, one divine council behind both books. Satan comes with them, an accuser who answers to the LORD. The scene is staged for the reader, and Job is never told of it.
Job 1:6
“There was a day when the sons of God - All the versions, and indeed all the critics, are puzzled with the phrase sons of God; בני האלהים beney haelohim, literally, sons of the God, or sons of the gods. The Vulgate has simply filii dei, sons of God. The Septuagint, οἱ αγγελοι του θεου, the angels of God. The Chaldee, כתי מלאכיא kittey malachaiya, troops of angels. The Syriac retains the Hebrew words and letters, only leaving out the demonstrative ה he in the word האלהים haelohim, thus, (Syriac) baney Elohim.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Job 1:6
“And it is likewise intimated, that the affairs of earth are much the subject of the counsels of the unseen world. That world is dark to us: but we lie open to it.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Job 1:6
“He has the law of God on his side by man's sin, and against man. But Jesus Christ has fulfilled the law for us; justice is once more on man's side against Satan (Isa 42:21); and so Jesus Christ can plead as our Advocate against the adversary. "Devil" is the Greek name--the "slanderer," or "accuser." He is subject to God, who uses his ministry for chastising man.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The LORD asks Satan to account for himself, and Barnes reads the question as the call of a master to a spirit under his control. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hear haste in the verb for roaming, a restless hurrying. Satan names his range and keeps his purpose to himself.
Job 1:7
“HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION How is it that it is never said to the elect Angels, when they come, 'Whence come ye?' while Satan is questioned whence he comes? For assuredly we never ask, but what we do not know; but God's not knowing is His condemning. Whence at the last He will say to some, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · Morals on the Book of Job, Book IIpatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Job 1:7
“And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? - This inquiry does not appear to have been made as if it was improper that Satan should have appeared there, for no blame seems to have been attached to him for this. He came as a spirit that was subject to the control of yahweh; he came with others, not to mingle in their society, and partake of their happiness, but to give an account of what he had done, and of what he had observed.”
Job 1:8-9
God himself opens the case, adding "there is no one on earth like him". The test that follows rises from the LORD's praise of Job and from no fault found in him. Satan's reply is the charge that every act of piety is a transaction paid for in blessing.
Job 1:8
“ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION That Job means by interpretation, 'Grieving,' we have already said a little above. And He is truly called 'Grieving' in figure, Who is declared by the testimony of the Prophet 'to bear our griefs.' Who has not His like on the earth; for every man is only man, but He is both God and Man. He has not His like on earth, because though every son by adoption attains to the receiving of the Divine nature, yet none ever receives so much, as to be, by nature, God.”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · Morals on the Book of Job, Book IIpatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Job 1:8
“Hast thou considered my servant Job - Literally, Hast thou placed thy heart on my servant Job? Hast thou viewed his conduct with attention, whilst thou wert roaming about, seeking whom thou mightest devour? viz., the careless, prayerless, and profligate in general.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Satan's charge is that Job fears God for pay. Barnes puts it as the claim that a blameless man whose work God has blessed has never been tested. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown answer from Genesis 15:1, where God himself is Abram's reward.
Job 1:9
“Doth Job fear God for nought? - “Is his religion disinterested? Would not anyone be willing to worship God in such circumstances?” The idea is that there was nothing genuine about his piety; that religion could not be tried in prosperity; that Job had an abundant compensation for serving God, and that if the favors conferred on him were taken away, he would be like the rest of mankind.”
1 more voice on this verse
Job 1:9
“For nought - Out of pure love and respect to thee? It is policy, not piety, that makes him good; he doth not serve thee, but serveth himself of thee, serving thee for his own ends.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Job 1:10-12
placed a hedge on every side around him: The hedge is Satan's own word for the protection he wants removed. Job uses the same image for his prison at 3:23. The LORD grants power over "Everything he has" while drawing one line, "you must not lay a hand on the man himself," a bounded permission.
Job 1:10
“Hast not thou made a hedge about him - Thou hast fortified him with spikes and spears. Thou hast defended him as by an unapproachable hedge. He is an object of thy peculiar care; and is not exposed to the common trials of life.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Job 1:10
"I see thou hast made a hedge about him, round about; " as if he had walked it round, to see if he could spy a single gap in it, for him to enter in at, to do him a mischief; but he was disappointed: it was a complete hedge. The wicked one saw it and was grieved, and argued against Job that the only reason why he served God was because God prospered him.
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Matthew Henry sees the faith of every servant of God staked on this one man. If Job curses God to His face, no upright man is left on the earth. Clarke hears the Hebrew as a man who blesses God only as long as God blesses all that he has.
Job 1:11
“HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION When Satan has a desire to tempt the holy man, and yet tells the Lord that He must put forth His hand against him, it is very deserving of notice that even he, who is so especially lifted up against the Maker of all things, never claims to himself the power to strike; for the devil knows well that he is unable to do any thing of himself, for neither in that he is a spirit does he subsist by himself.”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · Morals on the Book of Job, Book IIpatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Job 1:11
“God declared Job the best man then living: now, if Satan can prove him a hypocrite, it will follow that God had not one faithful servant among men and that there was no such thing as true and sincere piety in the world, but religion was all a sham, and Satan was king de facto--in fact, over all mankind.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Everything Job has passes into Satan's hands. Clarke observes that Satan cannot take one sheep without leave from the LORD, and his malice stays under control. Matthew Henry sets the permission beside the sifting of Peter at Luke 22:31 and 32, where the Lord prayed that his faith would hold.
Job 1:12
“MORAL INTERPRETATION As if He said in plain words; 'I give thee so to try the good that is in each one of Mine Elect by temptation from without, that thou mayest acquaint thine own self that I keep him holding on to Me by the inward root of the mind; and hence it is rightly added, So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord. For in that he is not suffered to prevail so far as to withdraw the heart, being thus shut out from the interior, he roams without.”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · Morals on the Book of Job, Book IIpatristic
2 more voices on this verse
Job 1:12
“All that he hath is in thy power - Satan cannot deprive a man even of an ass, a sheep, or a pig, but by especial permission of God. His power and malice are ever bounded, and under control. So Satan went forth - The Targum adds, with authority from the presence of the Lord.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 1:12
“He suffered Job to be tried, as he suffered Peter to be sifted, but took care that his faith should not fail ( Luke xxii. 32 ) and then the trial of it was found unto praise, and honour, and glory, 1 Pet. i. It is a matter of comfort that God has the devil in a chain, in a great chain, Rev. xx.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Four Messengers, and a Man Who Worships
Job 1:13-19
sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine: Gill notes the alternation of the blows, raiders, then fire from heaven, then raiders, then a mighty wind, human violence and divine-seeming disaster trading places. Each messenger closes with the same refrain, "I alone have escaped to tell you," so Job hears every loss compounded by the survivor's report.
Job 1:13
“And there was a day - That is, on the day on which the regular turn came for the banquet to be held in the house of the older brother; compare the notes at Job 1:4. And drinking wine - This circumstance is omitted in Job 1:4. It shows that wine was regarded as an essential part of the banquet, and it was from its use that Job apprehended the unhappy results referred to in Job 1:5.”
1 more voice on this verse
Job 1:13
“HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION We ought to observe what times are suited for temptations; for the devil chose that as the time for tempting, when he found the sons of the blessed Job engaged in feasting; for the adversary does not only cast about what to do, but also when to do it. Then though he had gotten the power, yet he sought a fitting season to work his overthrow, to this end, that by God's disposal it might be recorded for our benefit, that the delight of full enjoyment is the forerunner of woe.”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · Morals on the Book of Job, Book IIpatristic
The messenger finds Job while the oxen are plowing and the donkeys are grazing nearby. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown see rural peace in that picture, which makes the raid that follows the more dreadful. Barnes notes that the Hebrew for messenger also means angel.
Job 1:14
“The asses feeding beside them - אתנות athonoth, the she-asses, which appear to have been more domesticated, as of more worth and use than the others, both for their milk and their work.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the Sabeans swooped down and took them away: The Greek version renders the Sabeans as a band of plunderers who took the oxen and donkeys captive, as Barnes reports. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown see Satan's design in the one servant who escapes each blow to tell Job. Each report leaves Job no time to recover.
Job 1:15
I alone am escaped--cunningly contrived by Satan. One in each case escapes (Job 1:16, 17, 19), and brings the same kind of message. This was to overwhelm Job, and leave him no time to recover from the rapid succession of calamities--"misfortunes seldom come single."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Clarke and Matthew Henry take the fire of God as lightning. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the phrase as a Hebrew idiom for a mighty fire, one great enough to consume all the sheep and servants. The messenger blames God for a blow Satan struck.
Job 1:16
“The fire of God is fallen - Though the fire of God may mean a great, a tremendous fire, yet it is most natural to suppose lightning is meant; for as thunder was considered to be the voice of God, so lightning was the fire of God. And as the prince of the power of the air was permitted now to arm himself with this dreadful artillery of heaven, he might easily direct the zigzag lightning to every part of the fields where the sheep were feeding, and so destroy the whole in a moment.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Job 1:16
“The fire of God - As thunder is the voice of God, so lightning is his fire. How terrible then were the tidings of this destruction, which came immediately from the hand of God! And seemed to shew, that God was angry at his very offerings, and would receive no more from his hands.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Clarke places the Chaldeans near Babylon, raiders who lived like the wandering Arabs and took camels and servants by the sword. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the three bands as trained soldiers, a step beyond the Sabeans of verse 15. Raiders strike Job a second time.
Job 1:17
“Chaldeans--not merely robbers as the Sabeans; but experienced in war, as is implied by "they set in array three bands" (Hab 1:6-8). RAWLINSON distinguishes three periods: 1. When their seat of empire was in the south, towards the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Matthew Henry notes that the loss of the children comes last, held back as the blow most likely to make Job curse God. Gill takes this messenger for a servant waiting at the feast in the oldest brother's house. The meal is the same one named in verse 13.
Job 1:18
“HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION He who is not laid low by one wound is in consequence stricken twice and thrice, that at one time or another he may be struck to the very core. Thus the blow from the Sabeans had been reported, the Divine visitation by fire from heaven had been reported, tidings are brought of the plundering of the camels, by man again, and of the slaughter of his servants, and the fury of God's displeasure is repeated, in that a fierce wind is shewn to have smitten the comers of the house, and to have overwhelmed his children.”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · Morals on the Book of Job, Book IIpatristic
1 more voice on this verse
Job 1:18
“This was the greatest of Job's losses, and which could not but go nearest him; and therefore the devil reserved it for the last, that, if the other provocations failed, this might make him curse God. Our children are pieces of ourselves; it is very hard to part with them, and touches a good man in as tender a part as any.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
a mighty wind swept in from the desert: Clarke sees Satan in the wind as the ruler of the power of the air, Paul's phrase at Ephesians 2:2, striking the house at once. Barnes notes that such storms from the desert are common in hot lands. Wesley calls this the greatest of Job's losses.
Job 1:19
“There came a great wind - Such tornadoes are not less common in Oriental countries than in the United States. Indeed they abound more in regions near the equator than they do in those which are more remote; in hot countries than in those of higher latitude. From the wilderness - Margin, “From aside.” That is, from aside the wilderness. The word here rendered “from aside” in the margin (מדבר mı̂dbâr ) means properly “from across,” and is so rendered by Dr. Good.”
Job 1:20-22
tore his robe, and shaved his head: Job's mourning is physical, and he "fell to the ground and worshiped". "The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away" names God as the actor in the loss. "Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing," and the curse Satan predicted at verse 11 has not come.
Job 1:20
“Rent his mantle - Tearing the garments, shaving or pulling off the hair of the head, throwing dust or ashes on the head, and fitting on the ground, were acts by which immoderate grief was expressed. Job must have felt the bitterness of anguish when he was told that, in addition to the loss of all his property, he was deprived of his ten children by a violent death. Had he not felt this most poignantly, he would have been unworthy of the name of man.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
Job 1:20
“Shaved - Caused his hair to be shaved or cut off, which was then an usual ceremony in mourning. Worshipped - Instead of cursing God, which Satan said he would do, he adored him, and gave him the glory of his sovereignty, of his justice, and of his goodness also, in this most severe dispensation.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Job 1:20
“Be perfectly assured of this, that though the reasons for what is ordained by God are beyond us, yet always what is arranged for us by him who is wise and who loves us is to be accepted, be it ever so grievous to endure. He himself knows how he is appointing what is best for each and why the terms of life that he fixes for us are unequal.”
Basil of Caesarea · written before 379 · LETTER 5.2patristic
Job 1:20
“Inward excitement is implied, and the beginning to do anything. He had heard the other messages calmly, but on hearing of the death of his children, then he arose; or, as EICHORN translates, he started up (2Sa 13:31). The rending of the mantle was the conventional mark of deep grief (Ge 37:34).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away: Barnes takes naked to mean without property, the thought Paul repeats at 1 Timothy 6:7. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hear Job's blessing of the name of the LORD as the answer to Satan's forecast in verse 11. The man who was to curse God blesses him.
Job 1:21
“And said, Naked came I out - That is, destitute of property, for so the connection demands; compare 1Ti 6:7; “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” A similar expression also occurs in Pliny, “Hominem natura tanturn nudism.” Nat. Hist. proem. L. vii. Job felt that he was stripped of all, and that he must leave the world as destitute as he entered it. My mother’s womb - The earth - the universal mother. That he refers to the earth is apparent, because he speaks of returning there again.”
1 more voice on this verse
Job 1:21
“Return thither - I shall be as rich when I die as I was when I was born, and therefore have reason to be contented with my condition, which also is the common lot of all men. Into the lap of our common mother, the earth, as the weary child lays its head in its mother's bosom. We go out of the world naked; the body doth, tho' the sanctified soul goes clothed.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing: The Hebrew behind wrongdoing is folly, a word for something tasteless. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown note that Scripture treats folly as wickedness, so to charge God with folly would be to sin against Him. Wesley adds that in all this Job held no dishonouring thought of God.
Job 1:22
“In all this Job sinned not - He did not give way to any action, passion, or expression, offensive to his Maker. He did not charge God with acting unkindly towards him, but felt as perfectly satisfied with the privation which the hand of God had occasioned, as he was with the affluence and health which that hand had bestowed. This is the transaction that gave the strong and vivid colouring to the character of Job; in this, and in this alone, he was a pattern of patience and resignation.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Job 1:22
“HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION Since, when we are laid hold of by distressing trials, we may even in the silent working of our thoughts, without word of mouth, be guilty of sin; the testimony both of the lips and of the heart is given to blessed Job.”
Gregory the Dialogist · written before 604 · Morals on the Book of Job, Book IIpatristic
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.