Job 1:2

The first verse describes Job in four ways, and each adds something to the others. He is introduced simply as “a man”, ʼîysh, the ordinary Hebrew word for a man, and then by name.

He was perfect, tâm, an adjective meaning complete, perfect, plain or upright. Said of Job, it means blameless and whole: a man whose devotion to God was sound and consistent, with no hypocrisy in his walk with God or with his neighbours. Scripture says the same of Noah, who was “perfect in his generations” (Genesis 6:9), righteous and blameless among the people of his own time.

He was upright, yâshâr, a word meaning straight or right. It speaks of conduct that keeps to a straight path, honest and fair in every dealing, so that what Job did matched what he was inside. Psalm 15:1–2 describes the kind of person who may dwell with the LORD in his holy hill, and Job is that kind of man.

He feared God. The word is yârêʼ, fearing or reverent, and the name of God beside it is ʼĕlôhîym. This is the reverence and awe of a man who has submitted his life to God, the kind of fear that leads to obedience and worship. It is the root of everything else said about Job, and it is the beginning of wisdom: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).

And he eschewed evil. To eschew is an old English word for shunning something. The Hebrew verb çûwr means to turn aside or turn away, and raʻ is evil. Job’s goodness was active. He saw wrong for what it was and deliberately turned from it, and his fear of God worked itself out in that daily turning.

The book of Job begins and ends in prose, in Job 1–2 and Job 42:7–17, and between them stand the long poetic speeches of Job and his friends. This opening frame tells us, before any trouble comes, that Job is blameless. When the losses come, then, we already know they are no punishment for his sin.

People in Job’s world commonly held that suffering follows sin and prosperity follows righteousness. Scripture itself teaches that God blesses obedience, in the blessings of Deuteronomy 28 and throughout Proverbs. Job’s friends will take that truth and run it backward, reasoning from his suffering to some hidden guilt. These first verses rule that out before the friends ever speak. The question the next scene raises is whether Job’s faith rests on his blessings: “Doth Job fear God for nought?” (Job 1:9). The rest of the book answers it.

Job’s children are listed before his flocks and herds, and they were the dearest part of his blessing. “There were born unto him” uses yâlad, to bear or beget, which in its passive forms means “be born”. These children came to Job as gifts, and Scripture says that children are a heritage from the LORD (Psalm 127:3). God’s promise to Abraham was of descendants as many as the stars (Genesis 22:17), and the blessings for obedience in Deuteronomy 28 include the fruit of the womb.

Among the peoples of the east, a large family, especially one with many sons, was counted a clear sign of God’s favour and a mark of standing. Sons carried on the family line, worked the flocks and fields, and cared for their parents in old age. Daughters were valued too, and their marriages joined the family to others.

Job’s sons “feasted in their houses”. The word for house is bayith, which also means a household, so each son was grown and had his own home and family, wealthy enough to host his brothers and sisters. The feast is mishteh, a banquet or feast with drinking, a time of food and celebration.

“Every one his day” uses yôwm, day or a span of time. Each son took his turn as host on his own day, in a regular round of gatherings. That day may have been his birthday or some other occasion, and the verse leaves it unnamed. The sons also “sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them”, so the whole family met together. It is a picture of a close and happy household, the kind Scripture values when it says that a simple meal with love is better than a rich one with hatred (Proverbs 15:17), and that there is a time to laugh as well as a time to weep (Ecclesiastes 3:4).

The scene also prepares for what follows. The feasting gives Job the occasion for his offerings in the next verse, and a day of feasting is when the calamities begin.

“When the days of their feasting were gone about” means when each full round of feasts was over. Then “Job sent and sanctified them”, calling his children and setting them apart, preparing them to come before God. He acted before any sin was known, as the head of his household.

“He rose up early in the morning”, bôqer, the morning, at the breaking of the day. Rising early shows how earnestly he took this duty, and he put it before the rest of the day’s work. He “offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all”, one for each child. The burnt offering, ʻôlâh, was wholly given to God, a sign of full dedication and a means of atonement for sin.

In Job’s time, before the law of Moses and the Levitical priesthood, the head of a family served as its priest. Noah offered burnt offerings after the flood (Genesis 8:20), and Abraham built altars to the LORD wherever he went (Genesis 12:7–8). Job stands in that line, and his care for his children is a kind of intercession, like Samuel gathering Israel so that he could pray to the LORD for them (1 Samuel 7:5).

His reason was this: “It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” The word for sons is bên, and his care took in all ten of his children. To sin, châṭâʼ, is to miss the mark and fall short of what God requires. Job knew that his children might have sinned in thought where no one could see, with some careless irreverence in the middle of their celebration. Scripture says the same about the heart. It is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9), we are to keep it with all diligence because the issues of life flow from it (Proverbs 4:23), and Jesus teaches that sin committed in the heart is sin indeed (Matthew 5:28).

“Thus did Job continually.” He did this every time, after every round of feasts, as a settled habit of his life. This faithful practice is what Satan will soon call into question.

Job is an upright man, and he points beyond himself to the one man who was perfect in every way. Jesus was without sin (Hebrews 4:15), he “did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22), and he feared God in full obedience to the Father, even to death on the cross (Philippians 2:8). Job turned away from evil, and Christ, who knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21), overcame the world (John 16:33). Job suffered though he was blameless, and Christ the righteous one suffered for the sins of others and became the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2).

Job’s offerings had to be made again after every round of feasts, and they covered sins that might have been committed. Christ offered himself once (Hebrews 7:27) for sins that were real, and he obtained eternal redemption for us (Hebrews 9:12). By that one offering he has perfected for ever those who are sanctified (Hebrews 10:10–14). Job interceded for his children at the altar, and Christ intercedes for us at the right hand of God (Romans 8:34), our advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1). He also cleanses the heart, where Job feared the sin was hidden.

Job’s ten children were a full family that was soon lost. Christ is the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29), gathering people of every nation into God’s household (Ephesians 2:19), and none can pluck them from his hand (John 10:28). Every spiritual blessing is ours in him (Ephesians 1:3), with an inheritance that is incorruptible and kept in heaven (1 Peter 1:3–5).

Job was the greatest of the men of the east. Christ, “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). He came as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), his kingdom is “not of this world” (John 18:36), and he teaches us to lay up treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:19–21). Job’s children feasted in their houses, and Christ gave his disciples the supper of the new covenant (Luke 22:19–20).

Everything in these verses comes from God’s hand: Job’s children, his flocks, his servants and his standing among the peoples. God gives children and wealth and the joy of a family at table, and he is pleased when they are enjoyed in the open, with a grateful heart. Job held all of it before God. He knew that sin can hide in the heart in the middle of good things, and he brought his children to God again and again.

These verses also show who God is. He sees the heart, so the sins Job feared were known to him even when no one else could see them. He receives the offering made in faith, and in Christ he has provided the one offering that never needs repeating. When the losses come in the verses that follow, we already know Job’s story, and we know that God watched over this man and called him upright before any trouble began.