Job 1

1. THERE was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and 2 turned away from evil. And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters. His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the children 4 of the east. And his sons went and held a feast in the house of each one upon his day; and they sent and called for their three sisters 5 to eat and to drink with them. And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually. Now it came to pass on the day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, that Satan came also among 7 them. And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down 8 in it. And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job? for there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and 9 turneth away from evil. Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear 10 God for nought? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath, on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his 11 substance is increased in the land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will renounce thee to thy face.

12. And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD. 13 And it fell on a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in 14 their eldest brother’s house, that there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside 15 them: and the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I 16 only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only 17 am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have taken them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped 18 alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house: 19 and, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am es 20 caped alone to tell thee. Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and wor 21 shipped; and he 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 22 LORD. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God with foolishness.

1-3. THE first three verses describe the position of Job, his country, name, character, family, and possessions.

1. Uz. A district peopled by the descendants of Uz. Three patriarchs bear this name: a son of Aram (Gen. 10:23); a son of Nahor,

Abraham’s brother (Gen. 22 : 21) ; and a grandson of Seir, the Horite (Gen. 36 : 28). The second of these probably gave the name to this country : the Chaldeans, Buzites, and indeed all the persons and tribes mentioned in the Book of Job, belong to the same race ; being either collateral or direct descendants from Abraham, and for the most part retaining the old patriarchal habits and traditions. The district, as generally identified, lay to the northeast of Idumæa, and appears to have been nearly co-extensive with Bathanyeh, or East Hauran, once a rich and fertile country. This is now generally regarded as the true home of Job. Cook.

3. Job dwelt not in tents, but in a house, not in camps, but in a town, having a fixed and not a movable residence, though his shepherds doubtless went out afar with his flocks. This is the state of life depicted as that led by the elder branches of Abraham’s family at Haran, the state of life which that great father of the faithful quitted, relapsing into a more simple pastoral life, to meet the alteration of his circumstances when he was required to go into a strange country, “not knowing whither he went.” This of course affords a corroboration to the opinion that Job not only belonged to this state of life, but to this region. He belonged to that condition which fluctuated between that of the wandering shepherd and that of the settled inhabitant of towns and cultivator of the ground ; and this mixed condition of life, which is still to be witnessed in some parts of western Asia, sufficiently accounts for the diversified character of the allusions and pictures which the book contains—to the pastoral life and the scenes and products of the wilderness ; to the scenes and circumstances of agriculture ; and to the arts and sciences of settled life and advancing civilization. Kitto.

4. In this beautiful picture of family affection and of domestic enjoyments sanctified by piety, and in the sudden and total reverse which follows, the way is prepared for the lessons of this book. Of the particular occasion or occasions of these entertainments no intimation is given. A birthday festival is mentioned among very ancient usages (Gen. 40 : 20), and an annual family festival (1 Sam. 20 : 6, 29). Whatever was the occasion, they were held at the houses of the several sons in immediate succession till the circle was completed. Conant.

5. We apprehend this to mean that when the cycle of entertainments for the period over which the rotation ran had been completed, Job customarily sent to invite them all to meet at his house, that they might be present at a solemn act of expiatory sacrifice—which, as the head of the family, it belonged to him in the absence of a priesthood to offer—by way of atonement generally for the sins of the season gone by, and specially for any forgetfulness of God into which they might have fallen in the course of their festivities. The subsequent institution under the law of Moses of a great annual day of atonement, understood to be expiatory for the transgressions of the congregation during the past year, helps to corroborate this interpretation as well as to illustrate the practice. This was the time, in the course of the rotation of visits, when all the family assembled in their father’s house. It was his turn then to receive them, and his entertainment was such as became his position and character. Kitto.—The act of worship was the sacrifice. As was customary in the patriarchal age to which Job belonged, and even far down in the history of Israel, the father was priest of the family, and the sacrifice offered was the burnt-offering. This offering contained in it the germs which afterward expanded into the various distinct kinds of sacrifice. Job used it as a sacrifice of atonement A. B. D.

These verses serve a threefold use in the narrative : primarily, they furnish an historical occasion for the terrible calamities which follow ; incidentally, they contain a striking illustration of Job’s tender and conscientious piety ; and finally, they present a pleasing picture of patriarchal family life in its affectionate harmony and joyousness. Evans.—Where now such piety was to be found, and such conscientious solicitude to keep his whole house free from sin, there might we expect, judging after the manner of men, that prosperity would abide permanently. This at least we might expect from the standpoint of theory, which regards the outward lot as an index of the moral worth ; which assumes piety and prosperity to be inseparable conceptions. But in heaven it was otherwise decreed. Dillmann.

6. This is a similitude taken from earthly courts, where advocates and accusers come together ; and it intimates unto us that as the good angels are ready to go forth at God’s command for the good of men, so is Satan ever ready to further his malicious plots against them. Neither came he for good, as the angels did, but presents himself to get a commission to hurt Job. Ainsworth.

Satan. Foe to God and man, and the accuser of the brethren. The Greek version in this passage of Job, and in Zech. 3:1, renders “Satan” by a word signifying the accuser. Parkhurst.—The grand spiritual “adversary” of mankind is here first introduced in Scripture under his proper name, “Satan,” and under the character assigned to him from hence in the New Testament, of “walking about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8, with allusion to Job 1:7 and 2:3), and as “the accuser of the brethren, who accused them before God night and day” (Rev. 12:10). Hales.—The name “Satan,” as denoting an enemy, frequently occurs in the Old Testament. See 2 Sam. 19:22; 1 Kings 5:4, where the word for “adversary” is in the original “Satan.” It is extremely probable that the root Satan was introduced into the Hebrew and other Eastern languages to denote an adversary, from its having been the proper name of the great enemy of mankind. Bishop Watson.

Satan appears here with all the traits which characterize him in the Hebrew Monotheism, a high dignity of origin, a perfidious malignity, a spirit of considerable power, but strictly limited by the will of Him who entrusts him with it. Godet.—Though malignant and evil, this spirit is evidently counted among the angels by origin and nature. He comes among them as one of their order. Like them, he has to give an account of what he has observed. This representation is in accordance with other notices in the Bible. The existence of a malignant spirit, permitted to range the earth, tempting and eahmmisting God’s rational creatures, is implied or asserted in all Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. It is to be observed that the final expulsion of this spirit from the higher region is represented in the New Testament as a result of the Saviour’s coming. The mystery which hangs over such representations is common to all questions which concern the origin or continuance of moral evil. Cook.

The attentive reader of Scripture will not fail to remark that the statement of the existence, the moral propensities, and the agency of Satan is extended nearly through the whole of the sacred volume; that its writers, in their portraiture of our great adversary, employ the same images and adhere to the same appellations throughout; that a complete identity of character is exhibited, marked with the same features of force, cruelty, malignity, and fraud. He is everywhere depicted as alike the enemy of God and man; who, having appeared as a serpent in the history of the fall, is recognized by Paul under the same character in express allusion to that event, and afterward by John in the Apocalypse as “that old serpent the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.” We have, therefore, just the same evidence of the real personality of Satan as of the Holy Spirit, and exactly of the same kind; both are described by inspired persons; to both, volitions, purposes, and personal characteristics are ascribed. A uniformity of representation, an identity of character, distinguished respectively by the most opposite moral qualities, equally pervade the statements of Scripture as to each to such a degree that, supposing the sacred writers to have designed to teach us the proper personality of Satan, it is not easy to conceive what other language they could have adopted. R. Hall.

There is a profound meaning in Satan’s appearing here among the sons of God before the Lord. It is designed to express his subordination and subjection to Divine control. There is a superior restraint to which he is obliged to bow, a superior will that sets limits to his rage, and allows him even within these limits to act out his evil nature only for the sake of some Divine end which he is made to be instrumental in achieving. It is evil in the person of its arch-representative and head, subject to good and constrained to be its minister. It is Satan actually exhibited in the attitude of a servant of God, and made subservient to the discipline and training of His people. W. H. G.

It does not at all derogate from the credibility of Job’s story in general to allow that this discourse between God and Satan is parabolical, an allegory designed to represent the malice of the devil against good men and the Divine check and restraint that malice is under. Only thus much further is intimated, that the affairs of this earth are very much the subject of the counsels of the unseen world. That world is dark to us, but we lie very open to it. H.—As to the incredibility of the conversation which is related to have taken place between the Almighty and Satan, it may be observed that this and the assemblage of the celestial intelligences before the throne of God should be considered as prophetical personifications, in accommodation to our limited faculties, which are abundantly authorized by God Himself in Holy Scripture, and are perfectly agreeable to the style wherein His prophets have been frequently commanded to deliver the most solemn and important truths. Thus the prophetic visions of Isaiah (chap. 6), of Ezekiel (chap. 1), of Paul (2 Cor. 12:2, 4), and of John (Rev. 4:1, 2) represent the proceedings of Providence in like reference to our powers and modes of conception; and the vision of Micaiah (1 Kings 22: 19-23) and that of Zechariah (2: 13; 3: 1) supply cases precisely parallel in every respect. Farmer justly remarks on this subject that such “visions or parabolical representations convey instruction as truly and properly as if they were exact copies of outward objects.” And indeed if the introduction of Satan be admitted as an argument against the truth of the history, it should lead us equally to reject the narrative of our Lord’s temptation as an unfounded fiction. Archbishop Magee.

Such passages [as cited above] fall in with those very emphatic sayings of Christ concerning the joy in heaven over a repentant sinner, and the angels of the little ones. They teach us that earth is not lost out of the sight of heaven, that heaven is full of intense interest, longing, joy, and sorrow over the course of man. Vincent.—We shall fail to grasp the principles which underlie this dramatic picture, unless we are taught by it that the fortunes of men possess an absorbing interest for the inhabitants of heaven; that moral problems are being wrought out here unlike any which have been solved there; and that therefore they follow the fluctuation of our fate with a Divine curiosity and sympathy of which we have but a faint conception. For a few brief years man passes across the face of the earth, but above him there bends a broad heaven, not cold and hard and careless, but full of tender love and eager ministries; and beneath him there yawns a hell crowded with hostile and malignant spirits, who would fain make him as selfish and miserable as themselves; while above all and through all and in all God reigns and works, compelling even the disasters and defeats of the conflict to minister to the completeness and glory of the final triumph. Cox.

7. Going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down. One consequence to the spirit which has no belief in unselfishness is the want of any centre of rest within itself. The condition of Satan is thus described here. Incessant wandering, “going about,” “seeking rest and finding none,” is the view given of him in Scripture. There is the constant endeavor to find a fixed point, and inability to discover it; and this may be the truth intended to be conveyed in that strange but significant narrative (Matt. 8: 28), where the evil spirit is urged from place to place by the conquering power of good, till it is driven to beg for a refuge in the lowest and most grovelling forms of creation—to find itself, even here, too, rejected, and cast forth naked and shelterless. This is most certain, that if the heart does not give quiet, no place in the universe can, and the personal head of evil has been for ages making the attempt to find that quiet in vain. Ker.—What doth Satan when he walks up and down the world? Doth he walk like an idle vagrant that hath nothing to do? Doth he walk merely to take the air or to take his pleasure, to see and be seen? No; when Satan walks about the world, his walking is working; he goeth about to tempt, to try and lay snares and baits to catch and captivate the souls of men. Caryl.

8-10. God, the Author, Judge, and Rewarder of good in the universe, declares before the heavenly assembly His satisfaction in the piety of Job. Satan, the representative of scepticism as to all virtue that has not passed through trial, does not give way to this judgment of God. God, instead of suppressing his insinuations, Himself draws forth the expression of them: “Hast thou considered My servant Job?” Satan, having no accusation to make against the outward conduct of Job, calls in question the purity of his motives: “Doth Job fear God for nought?” There is no great merit in faithfully serving a master who heaps benefits upon you, and pays you highly for your services. Godet.

8. My servant. No higher title of honor can be borne by man. This direct attestation of God to Job’s character must be borne in mind throughout. Cook.—Both in the Old Testament and in the New, the dignity of the service of God is spoken of as paramount to all the other dignities of God’s people? “Hast thou seen My servant Job?” God spoke with Moses face to face, but when God would boast of Moses, He does not speak of other privileges, but of this: “My servant, that is faithful in all My house.” The great Apostle Paul puts his being a servant of God before his apostleship. “Paul, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ.” You find the same in Peter. He also says, “Peter, the servant of God and of Jesus Christ, and an apostle.” When the great apostle speaks of James, he calls him “the Lord’s brother;” but when you find James writing his epistle, it is, “James, the servant of God and of Jesus Christ.” The beloved disciple lay upon the bosom of God, but we do not find him speaking of this as his primal privilege; it was, “John, the servant of Jesus Christ.” The glory of the angelic host does not consist in this, that they excel in strength, that they stand upon the mount of God, but that they do His commandments, and that they hearken unto the words of His mouth. There is no higher dignity in heaven, no higher privilege than to be the servant of God. When we come to the Revelation we read of a goodly multitude there, clothed in white robes. There are palms in their hands; they stand upon a sheet of glass; they harp with the harps of gold; but what is the privilege on which the Spirit of God lays emphasis? Not their robes, not their palms, not their harps, but this—“They serve God, day and night, in His temple.” Marcus Rainsford.

A perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and turneth away from evil. This statement of the Lord is very comprehensive. He was perfect and upright. Uprightness denotes honesty, straightforwardness, sincerity. He was sincere in his professions and honest in his practice. Uprightness, moreover, means conformity to the standard of right, and this both inwardly and outwardly. We read both of the upright in heart and of the man that is upright in his way. He was a man of integrity, therefore, both in spirit and in life—a man attentive to his obligations both to God and man, and who punctually discharged them. And, with all, he was perfect—perfect and upright, perfect in his uprightness. Perfect not, of course, in that sense in which, according to the uniform teaching of Scripture and the universal experience of men, perfection is unattainable in this life. Not that he was absolutely faultless, for there is no man that liveth and sinneth not. Job never claims spotless innocence. But he was perfect in the sense of completeness. There was a completeness in his piety, which compassed the whole round of obligation. He studied conformity to the rule of right in all things, at all times, under all circumstances. And the spring of this perfectness and uprightness, or this complete integrity, was that he feared God. He set the will of God before him as his rule, the glory of God as his end, the approbation of God as his highest reward. In this fear of God he walked all the day long. This was his grand motive, overpowering everything else. This impelled him to prompt and ready obedience to every Divine command. This made him steadfast in his uprightness, and led to his perfectness and completeness in it. It also led to the sedulous avoidance of its opposite, and thus completed the perfect square by the fourth side, which is the finishing stroke to this description of a well-regulated piety. He “turned away from evil;” he carefully shunned all sin, kept aloof from everything that was wrong in heart, speech, and behavior. W. H. G.

Having a respect to all God’s commandments, aiming at perfection, he did not dissemble in his profession of piety; his heart was sound, and his eye single. Sincerity is Gospel perfection; I know no religion without it. He was upright in his dealings both with God and man; was faithful to his promises, steady in his counsels, true to every trust reposed in him, and made conscience of all he said and did. The fear of God reigning in his heart was the principle that governed his whole conversation. That made him perfect and upright, inward and entire for God, universal and uniform in religion; that kept him close and constant to his duty. H.—Perfect holiness is the aim of the saints on earth, and is the reward of the saints in heaven. That which they aim at here is perfection—to be perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect, therefore they are called perfect. As God accepts the will for the deed, so He expresses the deed by the will. He esteems him to be a perfect man who strives after perfection; and He calls that person perfect who longs to have all his imperfections cured. We see, therefore, that Job might properly and fitly be described as “a perfect man,” although it is clear from what ensues that many infirmities remained with him, and although he knew himself to be a sinner. Kitto.—Job was an eminent saint of God, though his line of descent was not counted from Abraham, and though he did not practise the multiplied rites of the Mosaic ceremonial. Whatever advantages there may be in an outward connection with the people of God or the visible Church, and whatever benefit may arise from outward attendance upon the services of religion—and certainly neither of these are to be undervalued when rightly understood and put in their proper place—that piety which has the approbation of God is something different from them and independent of them. W. H. G.

9. Satan, the accusing angel, fresh from his self-chosen task of roaming earth in search of sin, fronts God in heaven itself with calumnies against His purest creatures and detraction of His most tried saints. It is indeed a devilish suggestion, one too gross for human mind to invent, that all virtue is assumed, and piety itself but a selfish policy to cheat God. “Doth Job serve God for nought?” Aglen.—For nought. The central point of the whole narrative is in this word. No flaw is discoverable in Job’s outer life; Satan, wiser than Job’s friends, sees and owns his integrity; the only possible objection touches the principle of his acts; the question raised is whether his goodness was disinterested, springing from pure love, or merely prudential, and dependent upon the external conditions under which it had been developed. Cook.

The question says, in effect, why not be righteous, when righteousness pays so well? But for another thing, the question reveals Satan’s character, which, as the sequel shows, is in polar contrast to that of Job. A half-wondering, half-sneering, wholly selfish question, the question of one who, having no allegiance outside of self, has no ability to understand unselfishness; it says in effect, Is there such a thing as disinterested integrity, goodness without thought of reward, possible in the world? J. F. G.—It is an argument of a most malignant spirit, when a man’s actions are fair, then to accuse his intentions. The devil had nothing to say against the actions of Job, but goes down into his heart and accuses his intentions. Malice misinterprets the fairest actions, but love puts the fairest interpretation it can upon foul actions. Caryl.

Satan puts his calumny, as many people have since done, into the form of a question. It is evident how he intended it to be answered. God has held up Job as a proof of His power to put true goodness into human nature, and the reply is that this seeming goodness is only self-interest. The man is religious because he makes a good thing out of it. The accuser has a belief in the philosophy of selfishness. It is a faith not uncommon in our day. There are some who seek a foundation for it in argument, and wish to prove that all virtue is merely self-interest largely and wisely interpreted, which is true in this respect, that goodness and self-interest will in the end coincide, but very false if it is meant that goodness has its origin in taking this end into account. Ker.—It was a great truth that Job did not fear God for nought, for godliness is great gain; but it was a falsehood that he would not have feared God if he had not got this by it, as the event proved. Job’s friends charged him with hypocrisy because he was greatly afflicted; Satan, because he greatly prospered. It is no hard matter for those to calumniate that seek an occasion. It is not mercenary to look at the eternal recompense in our obedience; but to aim at temporal advantages in our religion, and to make it subservient to that, is spiritual idolatry; worshipping the creature more than the Creator is likely to end in a fatal apostasy; men cannot long serve God and mammon. H.

The attacks of Satan are aimed primarily at the honor of God. And he knows perfectly well that the most telling blow he can inflict upon it is to deny that God is ever disinterestedly served and sincerely loved by any being whatsoever. The object of the trial of Job is precisely to demonstrate to him the contrary. Godet.

12. To make it plain that goodness may have other foundations and affliction other results, the Lord allows him to oppress for a season His righteous servant—to strip him of all—to bring him very low, but only to hold his person sacred. We learn from this that Satan has no independent power to distress mankind but as the Lord permits, for the trial of our faith and for the purification of our souls, and, therefore, for ultimate good if we but hold fast that which we have. It is only by our failure that the enemy gains any real power over us; and this conviction, that whatever form our trials take they are essentially from the Lord, should teach us to receive them all as from His hand—a Father’s hand. Kitto.—It is matter of wonder that God should give Satan such a permission as this, but He did it for His own glory, the honor of Job, the explanation of Providence, and the encouragement of His afflicted people in all ages; to make a case which, being adjudged, might be a useful precedent. He suffered Job to be tried as He suffered Peter to be sifted; but took care that his faith should not fail, and then the trial of it was found unto praise and honor and glory (1 Pet. 1:7). But it is matter of comfort that God has the devil in a chain (Rev. 20:1). He could not afflict Job without leave from God first asked and obtained, and then no further than he had leave: “Only upon himself put not forth thine hand; meddle not with his body, but only with his estate.” It is a limited power that the devil has; he has no power to debauch men but what they give him themselves, nor power to afflict men but what is given him from above. H.

It belongs to the magnificence of God’s universal government that opposition and hostility, instead of tending to thwart or retard His plans, invariably contribute to further and promote them. Satan forms no exception. This archfiend, with the entire kingdom of evil which he instigates and controls, is absolutely powerless to prevent or to retard the execution of the least of God’s designs. The decrees which he would frustrate embrace himself and all his hateful deeds, as agencies co-operating to their fulfilment. With all his hatred of God and spite against His people, he cannot emancipate himself from that sovereign control which binds him to God’s service. In all his blasphemous designs he is, in spite of himself, doing the work of God. W. H. G.

All agencies, material and spiritual, are under the Divine control; and the one or the other may, with equal reason, be made the instrument of God’s will. A process similar to the one here described, and with like results, is recorded in the memorable passage, Luke 22:31. The lessons to be drawn from the course of Providence, in the present state of imperfection and trial, are fully set forth in Rom. 8:18-25, 28. Conant.—God inaugurates and permits nothing which He cannot control; and the same thought is in the mind of Paul when he writes to the Corinthians, “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way for your escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” V.

Satan went forth. It is not the place makes us like to God, but there must be a likeness to God to make the place pleasant to us. When once the angels had corrupted their nature, the short stay they made in heaven did neither please them nor reform them. And when Satan appeared before God, among the angels, neither God’s presence nor His speaking to him did anywise better him; he came a devil and he went away so, without any pleasure in the place or presence, but by the permission of God to wreak his malice on holy Job. Charnock.

17. This completes the ruin of Job’s estate. The Sabeans had plundered the cattle of the homestead, the oxen and the asses; the fire had consumed the flocks of sheep in the pastures; and now the Chaldeans drive off the camels, which were at pasture in another and probably more distant quarter. And it is worthy of note that in all these cases the servants had lost their lives in defence of their master’s property—the best proof that could be given that he had been a good master to them. Kitto.—These incursions from opposite quarters—Sabeans from the south, Chaldeans from the north—completed the destruction of Job’s substance, but this draws from him no word of complaint; the “hedge” (v. 10) is broken down, the “blessing” gone, the “cattle” and “household” destroyed, but he remains steadfast. Cook.

18,19. The next messenger came to declare to the patriarch that all his children were dead—rent from him at one fell swoop. In the midst of their feast, a “great wind from the wilderness came and smote the four corners of the house,” so that it fell, and destroyed all who were in it. This must have been a whirlwind, as it thus seemed to come from all points of the compass at once. Of the extreme violence and destructive effects of whirlwinds within the limited range in which they operate in eastern and especially tropical countries, many instances are reported. Kitto.—We had scarcely advanced two miles into the plain, when we were enclosed by a violent whirlwind, or what is called, at sea, the waterspout. A camel was lifted and thrown down at a considerable distance, and several of its ribs broken. Although I was not near its centre, it whirled me off my feet, and threw me down on my face, so as to make my nose gush out with blood. Two of the servants likewise had the same fate. It demolished one half of a small hut as if it had been cut through with a knife, and dispersed the materials all over the plain, leaving the other half standing. Bruce.

This was Job’s greatest loss and severest trial. In tracing the dark and blood-red cycle of Job’s afflictions, we miss the purpose for which these things were written, if we do not learn to hold all our blessings with a loose hand. There could be no one whose estate was better gotten, better founded, or better managed than Job’s; yet in one short day all was gone. In the morning he had a fair estate and numerous children, in whom he saw the roots of his honors planted deep. In the things of this world, all was as great and good as the heart of man could desire. But in the evening he stood among the ruins of his greatness, poor, childless, desolate. Kitto.

20. Then Job arose—then only, not until his heart was smitten by the loss of his children—and rent his mantle. The outer robe worn by men of rank. The shaving of the head, an act done slowly and carefully, indicates mastery over the strong passion; there was no wild tearing of hair, but simply the adoption of the usual form of mourning. Worshipped. He prostrated himself, the most solemn act of adoration; thus directly, though unconsciously, refuting the assertion that he would renounce God in bereavement. Cook.—Afflictions send the people of God home to God. When God is striking, then Job is praying; when God is afflicting, then Job falls to worshipping. Grace makes every condition work glory to God, and God makes every condition work good to them who have grace. Caryl.

21. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. Oh, victory! What were the conquest of a realm—what all that the earth calls glory, to this? The man has conquered himself; and in so doing Satan is conquered too. Little knew Job the great confusions that hung upon that issue. The “sons of God” once more “shouted for joy;” and the enemy for the time withdrew defeated, but still unconvinced and still implacable. Kitto.

So far is Job from giving up his confidence in the goodness of the Lord that he strengthens himself in this confidence by the very greatness of the calamity that he has suffered, and draws his argument of praise for the multitude of God’s mercies from the very bitterness of the cup that is now pressed to his lips. The more deeply he mourns the treasures which have been taken away from him, the higher is his appreciation of the gracious kindness of Him who bestowed them. Thus the more profoundly he grieves, the more fervently he still blesses the name of the Lord. W. H. G.—He has still the same great and good thoughts of God that ever he had, and is as forward as ever to speak them forth to His praise; and can find in his heart to bless God, even when He takes away, as well as when He gives. Thus must we sing both of mercy and judgment (Ps. 101 : 1). He blesses God for what was given, though now it was taken away. When our comforts are removed from us, we must thank God that ever we had them, and had them so much longer than we deserved. He adores God even in taking away, and gives Him honor by a willing submission; nay, he gives Him thanks for good designed him by his afflictions, for gracious supports under his afflictions, and the believing hopes he had of a happy issue at last. H.

Mighty is the faith that blesses God while smiting our comforts to the ground. The grace enjoined on New Testament believers is exemplified in this Old Testament saint (1 Thess. v. 18). To bless God in our comforts is the way to have them increased; to bless Him in our afflictions the way to have them removed [Augustine]. T. Robinson.—If we bless God in our afflictions, then our afflictions are blessings unto us. We have so much blessing in our afflictions as we can bless God for our afflictions. Here is an heavenly alchemy: Whatsoever affliction you touch with blessing God, you turn that affliction to a blessing. Caryl.

“The Lord gave.” Look upon all you enjoy as the free gift of a covenant God; hold the Giver fast, but hold the gifts with a trembling hand. Perhaps you may be constrained to say of some of your sweetest enjoyments, “The Lord hath taken away.” Love saw that they would do you harm, and that it is best for you to be without them; therefore in love God takes them away. Love is the same in God when giving as when taking away; therefore, what good reason have we to say for both, “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” Here you see the work of faith. It sees the Lord’s name written upon every enjoyment; it owns the Lord’s right to give or take away; it bows to the Lord’s sovereign will, and says, Lord, Thou doest all things well; though what Thou doest I cannot now know, yet I shall know hereafter; I am sure there is a Father’s love and wisdom in all; oh, that all may be sanctified to me and I profited by all. Thus, as faith in Christ brings us to the knowledge of God to enjoy peace with Him, so it teaches submission to His will and to bless His name at all times. Rejoice in the Lord. W. Mason.

22. Sinned not, nor charged God with foolishness. Imputed no folly or injustice to God. Ascribed nothing to God unworthy of His justice, goodness, and wisdom. Entertained no dishonorable thought, uttered no murmuring word against Him. T. Robinson.—If Job had let Satan carry away his good conscience, he would soon have unbound him, and let him have his estate and children again. It is not a form of religion, but its power, that the devil maligns. The profession of Judas, Satan knew, did not put him a step out of his way to hell. The devil can live very peaceably, as a quiet neighbor, by the door of such as will content themselves with an empty profession; this alters not his property, nor touches his copyhold. Gurnall.

That we may properly appreciate the conduct of Job in his affliction, we must take into consideration that those revelations had not yet been made upon which the believer now so firmly rests his hope in times of deep distress. He grappled with the mystery of affliction in all its unexplained darkness and difficulty until his own soul found rest. Those cheering views of truth to which he fought his way, or which were graciously vouchsafed to him in his trial, have been the heritage of God’s people ever since. Simple and obvious as they now appear to us from frequent repetition, they had never been distinctly formulated, and no clear conception of them had ever been reached. W. H. G.

Job was obliged to work out the problem as best he could in darkness and desertion and wretchedness, and patiently to await “the end of the Lord.” But through the life and sorrow and death of the Son of Man, it has come to pass that Job’s experience need never be repeated, to any Christian at least, so far as the meaning of sorrow is concerned and the presence and purpose of God in affliction. The particular result which God may be meaning to work out for you or me through trouble may not indeed be plain; but we can never be in doubt that God is in the trouble, that God is using the trouble for good, that God is controlling the trouble so that it shall not exceed our strength, that by the trouble God is testing the reality of our faith and the sincerity of our motives, and purging out the dress of selfishness, and that out of the trouble He means to bring a thoroughly tried and proved character, which “shall appear to praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” Vincent.

We know that the trial of the angels has taken place. Holy Scripture makes known to us the result of it, though without telling us in what it consisted. This result differs in one very material point from that in our own case. With us the race altogether is fallen, just because we are a race, and in that method of existence, the fate of all the individuals is bound together, at least according to the order of nature. Humanity is like a single tree with many branches; cut the trunk, and each branch is as completely severed from the root by that one blow as if it had itself been struck. The case must be quite different where there is no race, no filiation, no species. With the angels, then, trial may have had different or opposite results in different cases. And according to Scripture, we find that this possibility became a reality. It tells us of certain angels that they “kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation;” that they “abode not in the truth;” while to others is given the title of “holy angels” and “elect angels.” The former, then, have abjure: the law of their existence, the will of their Creator; that is to say, they have made their own will the principle of their actions. They have thus fallen from the sphere of truth, which is only in God, into that of falsehood; their existence has become factitious, they oscillate unceasingly between illusion and imposture, alternately deceived and deceiving. For there exists no support outside of their own being to which they can attach themselves. They no longer possess God, from whom they have separated themselves, and with whom the faithful angels are still in communion; neither can they enjoy the world, with which the nature of their organs does not allow them to communicate directly—that world which forms a temporary compensation for sinful men who have lost God. They live and act in the void of their own subjectivity, a void which they ever seek to people with their own lying creations. The only consolation they have for the loss of God consists in fighting against all that is good and true, and in seducing other free beings, whom they seek to drag with them into their own feverish activity, purely negative, and constantly powerless. Godet.

Jesus distinctly recognized the existence of Satan, and a kingdom of evil spirits marshalled under Satan for the destruction of mankind. The war which began in heaven has been transferred to this world, and waxes fiercer as the end draws near. Christ came to destroy the power and the works of the devil; and while, by His teaching, His atonement, and His Spirit, He sought to deliver men personally from the dominion of Satan, He also maintained, in the region of spiritual forces, a direct conflict with the powers of darkness. The fact that He cast out devils was proof that the Spirit of God wrought in Him, and that the kingdom of God was mightier than the kingdom of Satan. Every man must choose between these kingdoms, between evil and good, between darkness and light, between Satan and God. “There is and can be in the world no middle party; they who are not with Christ, who do not gather with Him, are against Him and His work, and, as far as in them lies, are undoing it.” The mightiest spiritual forces are struggling for the possession of the soul of man: on the one hand, Satan, the tempter of our first parents, the “father of lies,” with his subtle devices of temptation; and, on the other, the Holy Spirit of light, truth, and love, with His influences of grace. No one can be passive in this conflict of spiritual powers; and as one chooses his alliance here will be his state and portion in the hereafter. J. P. T.

The question of Satan’s personality is one relating to the credibility of the Scriptures. The existence of the devil is so clearly taught in the Bible, so necessarily a part of the revealed Word, so legible on its very face, and so thoroughly interwoven with all of its deliverances, that to doubt it is to doubt the authenticity of the Bible itself. Having the same proofs of the personality of Satan that we have of any other being unseen by us, they who preach a symbolical devil should also preach a symbolical Adam, a symbolical Christ, a symbolical God, a symbolical universe. T. McRae.—The Satan of Scripture is individual and personal. It is he who is said to have tempted Christ, to have prompted Judas in his sin, to have filled the heart of Ananias, to have hindered the apostle in a proposed journey, to have baffled him with some unknown ailment. He is described as tempting the saints, as going about like a roaring lion, as counteracting the effect of the word of God, as sowing tares among the wheat, as the instigator of persecution against the church. To destroy Satan’s power was the special object of Christ’s coming. He is the spirit who works in the disobedient, and who blinds the eyes of them that believe not. To the unbelieving world he stands in a special relation as its prince and patron. For him and his angels there is reserved “the lake of fire and brimstone.” Moreover, this Satan does not stand alone in his opposition to Christ—he is Beelzebub, the prince of devils. He is ruler of a kingdom. His angels are mentioned as well as himself. Christians are warned against the wiles of the devil, and are also enjoined to put on the whole armor of God if they would wage a successful warfare “against principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world.” In short, over against the kingdom of God, of which He is the head and for the coming of which we are taught to pray, stands the kingdom of darkness, of which Satan is the head, and from which it is our privilege as Christians to be delivered. Yes. Satan is no abstract law or ideal conception of evil, but a personal being, conscious and distinctively active as man, though with faculties immeasurably beyond any we possess. T. A. Nelson.

Surely, if there is any petition that we offer in all sincerity and with agonizing fervency, that which our blessed Lord has taught us should be so offered, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” He who has any just sense of his own weakness and frailty, and of the frightful evil of sin, must be incessant in his entreaties that he may be upheld in steadfastness by an almighty arm, and guarded from the assaults of one who succeeded even in enticing angels to their fall, and prevailed over our first parents in all the vigor of their early integrity, and to whom we shall prove an easy prey unless One stronger than the strong man armed interferes for our rescue. W. H. G.

Satan will not be wanting in any opportunity or advantage of setting upon the soul. He seeks to winnow, and comes when the corn is under the flail. Reckon, therefore, that when trouble cometh, the prince of this world cometh also, that you may be provided for him. Then is the time to take the shield of faith, that we may be able to quench his fiery darts. Watch, therefore, and pray, that Satan do not represent God falsely unto you. He that durst represent Job falsely to the all-seeing God will, with much more boldness, represent God falsely unto us, who see and know so little. Owen.—Since the fall, a godly life is not known by perfection of grace, so much as by conflicts with sin. Those that have most grace feel most trouble from Satan. Sometimes he distresses God’s people with sad and doubtful thoughts; at other times with worldly and carnal temptations. We cannot set upon the performance of any duty, but he suggests slothful thoughts or carnal counsels! You must not then suppose yourselves forsaken of God because tempted of Satan. Such conflicts are not inconsistent with faith and piety. He adventured upon Christ Himself, after he had a testimony from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son.” The way and means by which this resistance may be carried on is by the graces of God’s Holy Spirit. There must be faith, which is the shield. There must be prayer, by which we strive to bring God on our side in the conflict. There must be sobriety. By which the apostle means a moderation of our affections in worldly things; which is necessary to this purpose, because all temptations are insinuated under the baits of pleasure, honor, profit, etc. There must be watchfulness: walking with fear and circumspection. But, above all, there should be reliance in the help and strength of Him who foiled the tempter, and who has put weapons into our hands that we may foil him also. He trod upon this old serpent when His heel was bruised upon the cross; and the God of peace shall tread Satan under our feet shortly. We need not doubt of help; for if Satan be an accuser, Jesus is an advocate; if there be evil spirits against us, there is the Spirit of God for us! T. M.