Job 1:14

And there came a messenger unto Job,.... Not a messenger of Satan, as Jarchi, or one of his angels, or evil spirits; though this is a sense which is embraced not only by some Jewish Rabbins, but by

And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them: The donkeys feeding beside them - Hebrew, she-asses.

i.e. Beside the oxen, therefore both were taken away together.

Job 1:14 And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them:Ver. 14. And there came a messenger] A sad relater, not a devil in the shape of a man, as the Rabbis would have it (let that pass for a Jewish fable), but one of Job’ s own servants, or some other eye witness, to make Job believe, belike, that, as an evil man, he only sought rebellion, since such cruel messengers were sent against him, Proverbs 17:11. The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding, &c.] i.e. We were none of us either idle, or ill-occupied; but taking pains, and tending our cattle, when this disaster befell us. "Fools, because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted," Psalms 107:17; they create themselves crosses, such as must therefore needs come with a sting in them, see Genesis 42:21. But Job’ s servants were honestly employed when plundered and assassinated; which showeth that his losses were not penal, but probational. And the asses feeding beside them] Peter Martyr, upon the First of Samuel, wittily applieth this text to prelates and non-residents; who, when put in mind of their duty, would usually answer, that they had substitutes and curates to do their business for them, Ita labor aliorum est, et proventus ipsorum; so that others took the pains, and they the profit, saith he, and as it is in the Book of Job, The oxen plow, and the asses feed beside them.

Verse 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.

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.

And there came a messenger unto Job - Hebrew מלאך mal'âk; the word usually rendered “angel,” appropriately rendered “messenger” here.

FIRST .14. A messenger — In each of the four cases the messenger was, Chrysostom thinks, (though without authority from the text,) Satan himself, who brought the tidings to Job that he might feed on his misery.