Context No. 668 of 4322 · Job
Context · Reflection
Job 1:17-22: in context
17While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.” 18While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, 19and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you.” 20Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped. 21He said, “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked will I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the LORD’s name.” 22In all this, Job didn’t sin, nor charge God with wrongdoing.
The book of Job opens by telling us what Job does not know. In the heavenly court, God has allowed a test: everything Job has may be struck, to see whether he serves God for nothing. So the blows fall, and the prologue lands them without a breath between. While one messenger is still speaking, the next arrives. Raiders take the oxen and donkeys, fire takes the sheep, the Chaldeans take the camels, and last, a wind out of the desert collapses the house on all his sons and daughters at once. Each messenger ends the same way: I alone have escaped to tell you.
Then Job stands up. He tears his robe and shaves his head, the signs of grief, and he falls to the ground. But he does not fall down cursing. He falls down and worships. Naked I came from my mother's womb, he says, and naked I will return; the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. He credits God with the giving and the taking in the same breath, and the narrator sets a seal on it: in all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. The long argument of the book has not begun. This is only his first answer, and his first answer is praise.
Job's first word after losing everything was to bless the name that gave and took. When something is torn out of my life, what is the first thing my mouth reaches for?
Sources
- Job 1:6-12: the wager in the heavenly court that sets the test in motion
- Job 42:10-11: the later restoration, when the LORD gives back and the frame closes
- 1 Timothy 6:7: we brought nothing into the world, an echo of Job's naked I came, naked I return