The Book of Job: Extract from King James Version Bible

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.


1:6. Now on a certain day, when the sons of God came to stand before the Lord, Satan also was present among them. The sons of God. . .The angels Ibid. Satan also, etc. This passage represents to us in a figure, accommodated to the ways and understandings of men, 1. The restless endeavours of Satan against the servants of God; 2. That he can do nothing without God's permission; 3. That God doth not permit him to tempt them above their strength: but assists them by his divine grace in such manner, that the vain efforts of the enemy only serve to illustrate their vir