Job 1:20

Then Job arose,.... Either from table, being at dinner, as some think, in his own house; it being the time that his children were feasting in their eldest brother's house; or from the business in

Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, Job arose - not necessarily from sitting. Inward excitement is implied, and the beginning to do anything.

Then Job arose from his seat, whereon he was sitting in a disconsolate posture. Rent his mantle, to testify his deep sense of and just sorrow for the heavy hand of God upon him, and his humiliation of himself under his hand. See . Shaved his head, i.e. caused the hair of his head to be shaved or cut off, which was then a usual ceremony in mourning, of which see 22:12 41:5 . Fell down upon the ground, in way of self-abhorrency, and humiliation, and supplication unto God. And worshipped, to wit, God, who is expressed in the following verse, and who is the only object of religious worship. Instead of cursing God, which Satan said he would do, he adored him, and gave him the glory of his sovereignty, and of his justice, and of his goodness also, in this most severe dispensation.

Job 1:20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,Ver. 20. Then Job arose, and rent his mantle] He stirred not at the three first doleful tidings, but this fourth startleth him; for he was neither a Stoic nor a stock. His strength was not the strength of stones, nor his flesh of brass, Job 6:12, that he should bear blows, and never feel pain, or make moan; that he should be silent in darkness, 1 Samuel 2:9, and not cry when God bound him, Job 36:11. This Stoical apathy or indolency (condemning all affections in that their wise man, who, as Cicero very well saith, as yet was never found) Jeremiah justly complaineth of, Jeremiah 5:3, and the Peripatetics utterly disliked; teaching, that wisdom doth not remove affections, but only reduce them to a mediocrity. Job kept the mean between despising the chastening of the Lord, and fainting when rebuked by him, Hebrews 12:5. See my Love Tokens, pp. 37, 38, &c. And shaved his head] In token of his very great sorrow. See Jeremiah 7:29 Micah 1:16, "Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle." When Germanicus died, divers foreign princes shaved their beards, to show their grief (Sueton.). Plutarch telleth us that Alexander the Great, at the funeral of Hephestion, his favourite, not only shaved himself, but clipped his horses’ and mules’ hair; yea, he plucked down also the battlements of the walls of the city, that they might seem to mourn too; but this savoured of too much sullenness. How much better his Macedonians, who, being once sensible of his displeasure, laid by their arms, put on their mourning attire, came trooping to his tent, where for almost three days they remained, with loud cries, and abundance of tears, testifying their remorse for offending him, beseeching his pardon, which at last they gained. God calleth to baldness for sin, Isaiah 22:12, which, in other cases, was forbidden, Leviticus 19:27; Leviticus 21:5 Deuteronomy 14:1. This Job performed here; for he knew that although God afflicteth sometimes for his own glory, John 9:3, sometimes for trial or exercise of his people’ s graces, yet sin is ever at the bottom, as the meritorious cause of what they suffer; and if he did not duly consider it before, Zophar gave him to understand that God exacted of him less than his iniquity had deserved, Job 11:6. And fell down upon the ground] This shows that Job arose not before to this end, that, with a stout and stubborn gesture of the body, he might withstand God; but rather, that he might, with greater lowliness and humility, submit to his justice, and implore his mercy: he fell down upon the ground and worshipped, saith the text; that is, he fell upon the ground to worship.

(20) And worshipped.—Compare the conduct of David (2 Samuel 12:20) and of Hezekiah (2 Kings 19:1). Moments of intense sorrow or trial, like moments of intense joy, force us into the immediate presence of God.

Verse 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. Worshipped] Prostrated himself; lay all along upon the ground, with his face in the dust.

13–22. Job’s first trial; and its issue: his reverence towards God remains unshaken Between Job 1:12-13 there is an interval, an ominous stillness like that which precedes the storm. The poet has drawn aside the curtain to us and we know what is impending. Job knows nothing. His children are about him and he thinks the Almighty is yet with him, Job 29:5. The earth smiles to him as it was wont by day; and by night the Bear, Orion and the Pleiades come forth in their silent procession, and the Dragon trails his glittering folds across the heavens overhead, and he looks with wonder into the deep chambers of the South. All is glorious with a constant glory because it is an unchanging hand that leads them forth, the hand of the Holy One from whose words he has never declined, Job 6:10, and whose candle as he deems still shines upon his head, Job 29:3. He does not know that he is being played for like a pawn. Suddenly the catastrophe overtakes him. Messenger after messenger, each taking up his tale of ruin before the other has concluded his, announce that all he had has been taken from him. Heaven and earth have combined to overwhelm him. The forces of nature and the destructive violence of men have united to strip him bare. The description has many features of the ideal. First, the catastrophe befell on the day when Job’s children were feasting in their eldest brother’s house, Job 1:13, the day on the morning of which Job had sent for his children and sanctified them and offered sacrifices on their behalf. Job’s godliness and his calamity are brought into the closest contrast. He felt this, and as he regarded every event as wrought by the hand of God immediately, his afflictions threw his mind into the deepest perplexity regarding the ways of God. Again, while heaven and men alternate their strokes upon him, these strokes follow one another with increasing severity, and in each case only one escapes to bring the grievous tidings. The rapid touches of the Author do not suggest any struggle or rising rebelliousness in Job’s mind. He manifests the liveliest grief, but maintains his self-control. And the scene closes upon the sufferer, a solitary man, worshipping God amidst the waste where his rich possessions once had lien.

Then Job arose - The phrase to arise, in the Scriptures is often used in the sense of beginning to do anything. It does not necessarily imply that the person had been previously sitting; see 2 Samuel 13:13.

THE TRIUMPH OF JOB, Job 1:20-22.20. Then Job arose — Thus far he has borne unmoved the successive shocks of adverse fate. But now nature triumphs.