Job 1:21

And said, naked came I out of my mother's womb,.... Either literally, where he was conceived and lay, and from whence he came into the world, though he afterwards wishes he never had, or had died as

And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. Naked - destitute of all earthly resources (1 Timothy 6:7).

I brought none of these things which I have now lost with me, when I came out of my mother’ s womb into the world but I received them from the hand and favour of that God who hath now required his own again. I still have all that substance wherewith I was born, and have lost only things without and beside myself. Naked shall I 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. Thither, i.e. into my mother’ s womb, which in the former clause is understood properly, but in this figuratively, of the earth, which is our common mother, as it is called by many authors, out of whose belly we were taken, and into which we must return again, . And as our mother’ s womb is called the lower parts of the earth, , so it is not harsh if reciprocally the lower parts of the earth be called our mother’ s womb. Nor is it strange that the same phrase should be taken both properly and metaphorically in the same verse; for so it is , let the dead spiritually bury the dead corporally. See also ,24 Psalms 18:26, &c. The Lord hath taken away; he hath taken away nothing but his own, and what he so gave to me that he reserved the supreme dominion and disposal of in his own hand. So I have no cause to murmur or complain of him. Nor have I reason to fret and rage against the Chaldeans, and Sabeans, and other creatures, who were only God’ s instruments to execute his wise and holy counsel. The name of the Lord, i.e. the Lord; God’ s name being often put for God himself, as 48:10 ,19 Daniel 2:19,20; as names are put for men, . The sense is, I have no cause to quarrel with God, but much cause to bless and praise him that he did give me such blessings, and suffered me to enjoy them more and longer than I deserved; and that he hath vouchsafed to afflict me, which I greatly needed for my soul’ s good, and which I take as a token of his love and faithfulness to me, and therefore ministering more matter of comfort than grief to me; and that he hath left me the comfort of my wife, and yet is pleased to continue to me the health of my body, and a composed mind, and a heart to submit to his good pleasure; and that he hath reserved and prepared such a felicity for me, whom no Chaldeans or Sabeans, no men nor devils, can take away from me; of which see .

Job 1:21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’ s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.Ver. 21. And said] He lay not on the ground dumb as a stone, as it is said of Nabal, 1 Samuel 25:37, and feigned of Niobe. He rageth not as Xerxes did, when he beat the sea, by way of revenge; neither vexeth himself without measure, as Achilles, at the death of his friend Patroclus. He curseth not God to his face (as Satan, that old liar, said he would do), nor so much as the Sabeans and Chaldees, or the devil, the chief engineer of his present sufferings; but, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer," Romans 12:12, he said, in the words of truth and soberness, Naked came I out of my mother’ s womb] Hence the proverb, Nudus tanquam ex matre, not having a rag to my back, but stark naked, as ever I was born. Hither I came a pitiful, poor, destitute, shiftless, and forlorn creature, not having a cross to bless myself with, as they say; much less sheep and oxen, children and servants, &c.; howbeit God provided for me then; and as he took me out of the womb, so he made me to hope when I was upon my mother’ s breasts, Psalms 22:9-10. I was cast upon him from the womb, &c. And shall I now cast away my confidence, which hath so great recompense of reward? No, though he hath stripped me stark naked, and left me with as little as he first found me, yet I will trust in him. It is he that maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up again, 1 Samuel 2:7. The will of the Lord be done. Here I am, let the Lord do with me that which is right in his own eyes, 2 Samuel 15:26. He is Lord paramount, the true proprietary and owner of all; I have been only his steward, his tenant at will. Iamque meos dedo Domino tibi iure penates: Tu mihi ius dederas, posse vocare Meos. And naked shall I return thither] sc. To the womb of my Magna Parens, Great mother, the earth, Magna parens terra est The great mother is the earth, (Ovid.), fitly called a mother, because, as thence we came in Adam, so there hence shall we be born again, as it were, at the resurrection; called, therefore, the regeneration, Matthew 19:28, for so some read the words there, Ye which have followed me, shall in the regeneration (when the Son of man shall sit in his glory) sit upon twelve thrones, &c. See Psalms 2:7 Acts 13:33. This Plato hammered at in his παλιγγεννεσια, or great Revolution.

(21) Thither.—If taken literally, can only refer to the womb, which in that case must here mean the earth, with a probable allusion to Genesis 3:19. (Comp. Job 17:14.) Blessed be the name of the Lord.—The very word used in a contrary sense (Job 1:11). Thus was Satan foiled for the first time.

Verse 21. Naked came I out of my mother's womb] I had no earthly possessions when I came into the world; I cannot have less going out of it. What I have the Lord gave: as it was his free gift, he has a right to resume it when he pleases; and I owe him gratitude for the time he has permitted me to enjoy this gift. Naked shall I return thither] Whither? Not to his mother's womb surely; nor does he call the earth his mother in this place. In the first clause of the verse he speaks without a metaphor, and in the latter he speaks in reference to the ground on which he was about to fall. As I came out of my mother's womb destitute of the earthly possessions, so shall I return שמה shammah, THERE; i.e., to the earth on which he was now falling. That mother earth was a common expression in different nations, I allow; but I believe no such metaphor was now in the mind of Job. The Lord gave] The Chaldee has, "The WORD of the Lord, מימרא דיי meymera dayai, gave; and the WORD of the Lord and the house of his judgment, have taken away!" WORD is used here personally, as in many other places of all the Targums. Blessed be the name of the Lord.] The following is a fine praphrase on the sentiment in this verse: - "Good when he gives, supremely good; Nor less when he denies; Afflictions from his sovereign hand, Are blessings in disguise." Seeing I have lost my temporal goods, and all my domestic comforts, may God alone be all my portion! The Vulgate, Septuagint, and Covedale, add, The Lord hath done as he pleased.

21. naked shall I return thither] The general sense is plain, though the precise idea is obscure. The words “my mother’s womb” must be used literally, and return thither somewhat inexactly, to describe a condition similar to that which preceded entrance upon life and light. Or, as growth in the womb is described, Psalms 139:15, as “being curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth,” the womb and the bosom of the earth, “the mother of all,” may be compared together. “We brought nothing into the world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out,” 1 Timothy 6:7. All that man has is a gift of God which He may recall. Job blesses God alike who gave and who recalled. the name of the Lord] The Author here lets the Israelitish name Jehovah fall from the lips of his hero, contrary to his usual habit of putting the names God, Almighty, which were not distinctively Hebrew, into the mouths of the speakers. Perhaps the phrase was a general one which alteration would have spoiled; or more likely, the writer was so much in sympathy with the sentiment put into Job’s mouth that it escaped him for the moment that it was not himself or his nation but one foreign to Israel that was uttering it.

And said, Naked came I out - That is, destitute of property, for so the connection demands; compare 1 Timothy 6:7; “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing

21. Return thither — The Chaldee paraphrast interprets thither by “the house of burial.” In the Apocrypha is an evident paraphrase of this verse.