Job 1:18

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:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) Thy sons and thy daughters.—See Job 1:13. The marvellous accumulation of disasters points us to the conclusion that it was the distinct work of Satan, according to the permission given him (Job 1:12), and consequently supernatural.

Benson Commentary

Job 1:18. While he was yet speaking there came also another — Bringing tidings the most distressing of all. One messenger immediately followed another in this manner, through the contrivance of Satan, by God’s permission, that there might seem to be more than ordinary displeasure of God against Job in his troubles, and that he might not have leisure to recollect himself, but be overwhelmed by a complication of calamities Thus the children of God are often in heaviness, λυπηθεντες, distressed, burdened with grief, through manifold trials; deep calls to deep; waves and billows, one after another, go over them. Let one affliction, therefore, quicken and excite us to prepare for another; for, how deep soever we may have drunk of the bitter cup, as long as we are in the world, we cannot be sure that we have drunk our share. Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking, &c. — That is, feasting after their manner, and, as Job had generally feared and suspected, perhaps sinning against God, Job 1:5.

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

Eating and drinking wine - ; the notes at Job 1:4, Job 1:13.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

17. Chaldeans—not merely robbers as the Sabeans; but experienced in war, as is implied by "they set in array three bands" (Hab 1:6-8). Rawlinson distinguishes three periods: 1. When their seat of empire was in the south, towards the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. The Chaldean period, from 2300 B.C. to 1500 B.C. In this period was Chedorlaomer (Ge 14:1), the Kudur of Hur or Ur of the Chaldees, in the Assyrian inscriptions, and the conqueror of Syria. 2. From 1500 to 625 B.C., the Assyrian period. 3. From 625 to 538 B.C. (when Cyrus the Persian took Babylon), the Babylonian period. "Chaldees" in Hebrew—Chasaim. They were akin, perhaps, to the Hebrews, as Abraham's sojourn in Ur, and the name "Chesed," a nephew of Abraham, imply. The three bands were probably in order to attack the three separate thousands of Job's camels (Job 1:3).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

i.e. Feasting after their manner, and, as Job generally feared and suspected, sinning against God, Job 1:5, which was a dreadful aggravation of the judgment.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

While he was yet speaking, there came another,.... A servant of one of Job's sons, who was in waiting at the feast before mentioned, and here again repeated:

and said, thy sons and thy daughters were eating, and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house; See Gill on Job 1:13.

Geneva Study Bible

While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy {z} sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house:

(z) This last plague declares that when one plague is past which seems hard to bear, God can send us another far more grievous, to try his and teach them obedience.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18, 19. The fourth stroke, the death of Job’s children. The wind struck the four corners of the house, being a whirlwind. It came from the side or region of the desert.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said (see the comment on ver. 16), Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house (comp. ver. 13). It is a common proverb that "misfortunes never come singly." Shakespeare says they "come not single foes, but in battalions." Still, so overwhelming a series of calamities falling upon a single individual all in one day could not but strike those who heard of them as abnormal, and almost certainly supernatural. So Job's friends concluded (Job 5:17). Job 1:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Fourth Messenger:

18 While he was yet speaking, another also came, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house: and, behold, a great wind came across from the desert, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

Instead of עוד, we have עד here: the former denotes continuity in time, the latter continuity in space, and they may be interchanged. עד in the signif. "while" is here construed with the participle, as Nehemiah 7:3; comp. other constructions, Job 8:21; 1 Samuel 14:19; Jonah 4:2. "From the other side of the desert" is equivalent to, from its farthest end. הנּערים are the youthful sons and daughters of Job, according to the epicene use of נער in the Pentateuch (youths and maidens). In one day Job is now bereft of everything which he accounted the gift of Jehovah, - his herds, and with these his servants, which he not only prizes as property, but for whom he has also a tender heart (Job 31); last of all, even his dearest ones, his children. Satan has summoned the elements and men for the destruction of Job's possessions by repeated strokes. That men and nations can be excited by Satan to hostile enterprises, is nothing surprising (cf. Revelation 20:8); but here, even the fire of God and the hurricane are attributed to him. Is this poetry or truth? Luther, in the Larger Catechism, question 4, says the same: "The devil causes strife, murder, rebellion, and war, also thunder and lightning, and hail, to destroy corn and cattle, to poison the atmosphere," etc., - a passage of our creed often ridiculed by rationalism; but it is correct if understood in accordance with Scripture, and not superstitiously. As among men, so in nature, since the Fall two different powers of divine anger and divine love are in operation: the mingling of these is the essence of the present Kosmos. Everything destructive to nature, and everything arising therefrom which is dangerous and fatal to the life of man, is the outward manifestation of the power of anger. In this power Satan has fortified himself; and this, which underlies the whole course of nature, he is able to make use of, so far as God may permit it as being subservient to His chief design (comp. Revelation 13:13 with 2 Thessalonians 2:9). He has no creative power. Fire and storm, by means of which he works, are of God; but he is allowed to excite these forces to hostility against man, just as he himself is become an instrument of evil. It is similar with human demonocracy, whose very being consists in placing itself en rapport with the hidden powers of nature. Satan is the great juggler, and has already manifested himself as such, even in paradise and in the temptation of Jesus Christ. There is in nature, as among men, an entanglement of contrary forces which he knows how to unloose, because it is the sphere of his special dominion; for the whole course of nature, in the change of its phenomena, is subject not only to abstract laws, but also to concrete supernatural powers, both bad and good.