Job 1:16

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 am escaped alone to tell thee.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(16) The fire of God.—Whether or not we understand this phrase as in the margin, it can hardly mean anything else than lightning. (Comp. Genesis 19:24, and 2Kings 1:10-14.) It is characteristic of the Old Testament poetry to see in the convulsions of nature the immediate action of the Most High; but perhaps it is intended throughout Job that we should see more than this, as the book undoubtedly assumes to be the record of a Divine revelation.

Benson Commentary

Job 1:16. While he was yet speaking — Before the former had done speaking, or Job could have time to compose his disturbed mind, and to digest his former loss; there came also another — Another messenger of evil tidings; and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven — Not ordinary lightning, which could scarcely have destroyed seven thousand sheep at once; but an extraordinary, terrible, and widely-spreading flame or fire, issuing from the air, accompanied, probably, by a dreadful storm of thunder and hail, such as that recorded Exodus 9., which destroyed both man and beast that were left without shelter in the field; or that which destroyed the army of the confederate kings, Joshua 10:11. We need not wonder that this fire and storm were so destructive, since they were raised by him who is emphatically termed the prince of the power of the air, and who had now permission to use his power to the utmost against the property of Job. Thunder is termed in Hebrew the voice of God, and the messenger terms this lightning the fire of God, not knowing that the evil spirit had any hand in causing it. How terrible then must have been the tidings of this destruction, which was represented as coming immediately from the hand of God, and which seemed to show that God was angry at Job’s very offerings, and would receive no more at his hands!

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:13-19 Satan brought Job's troubles upon him on the day that his children began their course of feasting. The troubles all came upon Job at once; while one messenger of evil tidings was speaking, another followed. His dearest and most valuable possessions were his ten children; news is brought him that they are killed. They were taken away when he had most need of them to comfort him under other losses. In God only have we a help present at all times.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

While he was yet speaking - All this indicates the rapidity of the movement of Satan, and his desire to "overwhelm" Job with the suddenness and greatness of his calamities. The. object seems to have been to give him no time to recover from the shock of one form of trial before another came upon him. If an interval had been given him he might have rallied his strength to bear his trials; but afflictions are much more difficult to be borne when they come in rapid succession. - It is not a very uncommon occurrence, however, that the righteous are tried by the rapidity and accumulation as well as the severity of their afflictions. It has passed into a proverb that "afflictions do not come alone."

The fire of God. - Margin, "A great fire;" evidently meaning a flash of lightning, or a thunderbolt. The Hebrew is "fire of God;" but it is probable that the phrase is used in a sense similar to the expression, "cedars of God," meaning lofty cedars; I or "mountains of God," meaning very high mountains. The lightning is I probably intended; compare Numbers 16:35; see the note at Isaiah 29:6.

From heaven - From the sky, or the air. So the word heaven is often used in the Scriptures; see the notes at Matthew 16:1.

And hath burnt up the sheep - That lightning might destroy herds and men no one can doubt; though the fact of their being actually consumed or burned up may have been an exaggeration of the much affrighted messenger. - The narrative leads us to believe that these things were under the control of Satan, though by the permission of God; and his power over the lightnings and the winds Job 1:19 may serve to illustrate the declaration, that he is the "Prince of the power of the air," in Ephesians 2:2.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16. fire of God—Hebraism for "a mighty fire"; as "cedars of God"—"lofty cedars" [Ps 80:10]. Not lightning, which would not consume all the sheep and servants. Umbreit understands it of the burning wind of Arabia, called by the Turks "wind of poison." "The prince of the power of the air" [Eph 2:2] is permitted to have control over such destructive agents.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

While he was yet speaking; before he could have time to compose his disturbed mind, and to digest his former loss, or indeed to swallow his spittle, as he expresseth it, Job 7:19.

The fire of God; a terrible flame of fire sent from God in an extraordinary manner, to intimate that both God and men were his enemies, and all things conspired to his ruin.

Is fallen from heaven, i.e. from the air, which is oft called heaven, as hath been noted again and again, whereof Satan is the prince, Ephesians 2:2.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

While he was yet speaking, there came also another,.... Another messenger, one of Job's servants, from another part of his fields where his sheep were grazing, and was one of those that kept them; he came with another piece of bad news, even before the other had finished his whole account; and the same is observed of all the other messengers that follow: so Satan ordered it, that all Job's afflictions should come upon him at once, and the news of them be brought him as thick and as fast as they could, to surprise him the more into some rash expressions against God; that he might have no intermission, no breathing time; no time for prayer to God to support him under the affliction, and sanctify it unto him; no time for meditation upon, or recollection of, past experiences of divine goodness, or of promises that might have been useful to him; but they came one upon the back of another, to hurry him into some indecent carriage and behaviour towards God, being considered by him as his judgments upon him:

and said, the fire of God is fallen from heaven; which the servant thought, or Satan put it into his mind to say, that it came immediately from God, like that which destroyed Nadab and Abihu and the murmurers in the camp of Israel, Leviticus 10:2 or, as it is commonly thought, is so called, because a most vehement one, as a vehement flame is called the flame of the Lord, Sol 8:6 this being such a fire as was never known, since the fire that came down from heaven and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities of the plain. I am inclined to think it was a prodigious flash or flashes of lightning; for as thunder is the voice of God, so lightning, which accompanies it, may be called the fire of God; and this agrees with the phraseology of the passage; it comes from heaven, or the air, and falls upon the earth, and strikes creatures and things in it; and which, as it is the effect of natural causes, Satan might be permitted to join them together and effect it; and this was done, and the news of it expressed in such language as to make Job believe that God was against him, and become his enemy, and that the artillery of heaven was employed to his harm, and to the ruin of his substance:

and hath burnt up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; as the fire or lightning which came down from heaven and consumed the captains, and their fifties, in Elijah's time, 2 Kings 1:10 and such like effects of lightning are often to be observed, both with respect to men and cattle; these were the 7000 sheep Job was possessed of, Job 1:3 and which were all destroyed at once, with the servants that kept them, excepting one; creatures very productive and very useful both for food and clothing, and also used for sacrifice; and it is thought that Satan's end in the destruction of these was, that Job might conclude from hence that his sacrifices were not acceptable to God, and therefore it was in vain to serve him; which he hoped by this means to bring him to express in a passionate manner to God:

and I only am escaped alone to tell thee; See Gill on Job 1:15.

Geneva Study Bible

While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The {y} fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

(y) Which was also done by the craft of Satan, to tempt Job even more grievously, so he might see that not only men were his enemies, but that God made war against him.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

16. The second stroke. The fire of God can hardly have been the sultry, poisonous Samoom, or hot wind of the desert, nor any rain of sulphur such as destroyed Sodom, but was most likely lightning; see 1 Kings 18:38; 2 Kings 1:12.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 16. - While he was yet speaking; literally, he yet speaking; ἔτι τούτον λαλοῦντος, LXX. The writer hurries his words to express the rapidity with which one announcement followed another (see vers. 17, 18). There came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven. "The fire of God" is undoubtedly lightning (comp. Numbers 11:1-3; 2 Kings 1:10, 14; Psalm 78:21). This Satan, under permission, might wield, as being "the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2): but there is, no doubt, something very extraordinary in a storm extending over the pastures occupied by nine thousand sheep, and destroying the whole of them (Cook) Still, it cannot be said that such a storm is impossible; and perhaps the damage done was not greater than that which followed on the seventh Egyptian plague (see Exodus 9:18-26). And hath burned up the sheep, and the servants; literally, the young men; i.e. the shepherds who were in attendance upon the sheep. And consumed them; literally, devoured them. Fire is often said to "devour" what it destroys. "The Egyptians," says Herodotus, "believe fire to be a live animal, which eats whatever it can seize, and then, glutted with the food, dies with the matter which it feeds upon" (Herod., 3:16). And I only am escaped alone to tell thee (see the comment on ver. 15). Job 1:16

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Second Messenger:

16 While he was yet speaking, another came, and said, The fire of God fell from heaven, and set fire to the sheep and servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

The fire of God, which descends, is not a suitable expression for Samm (Schlottm.), that wind of the desert which often so suddenly destroys man and beast, although indeed it is indicated by certain atmospheric phenomena, appearing first of a yellow colour, which changes to a leaden hue and spreads through the atmosphere, so that the sun when at the brightest becomes a dark red. The writer, also, can scarcely have intended lightning (Rosenm., Hirz., Hahn), but rain of fire or brimstone, as with Sodom and Gomorrha, and as 1 Kings 18:38; 2 Kings 1:12.