Job Chapter 1

Job's virtue and riches. Satan by permission from God strippeth him of all his substance. His patience.

1:1. There was a man in the land of Hus, whose name was Job, and that man was simple and upright, and fearing God, and avoiding evil.

Hus. . .The land of Hus was a part of Edom; as appears from Lam. 4.21.—Ibid. Simple. . .That is, innocent, sincere, and without guile.

1:2. And there were born to him seven sons and three daughters.

1:3. And his possession was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a family exceedingly great: and this man was great among all the people of the east.

1:4. And his sons went, and made a feast by houses, every one in his day. And sending, they called their three sisters, to eat and drink with them.

And made a feast by houses. . .That is, each made a feast in his own house and had his day, inviting the others, and their sisters.

1:5. And when the days of their feasting were gone about, Job sent to them, and sanctified them: and rising up early, offered holocausts for every one of them. For he said: Lest perhaps my sons have sinned, and have blessed God in their hearts. So did Job all days.

Blessed. . .For greater horror of the very thought of blasphemy, the scripture both here and ver. 11, and in the following chapter, ver. 5 and 9, uses the word bless to signify its contrary.