Job 1:19
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when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on the young people and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Ἐπ ̓ αὐτῶν τῶν λέξεων [τοῦ βιβλίου] γενόμενοι σαφηνίσωμεν τὴν ἔννοιαν,αὐτοῦ ποδηγούντος ἡμᾶς πρὸς τὴν ἑρμηνείαν, τοῦ καὶ τὸν ἅγιονἸὼβ πρὸς τοὺς ἀγῶνας ἐνισχύσαντος. - Olympiodoros. The Opening - Job 1:1 Job's Piety in the Midst of the Greatest Prosperity - Job 1:1-5 The book begins in prose style: as Jerome says, Prosa incipit, versu labitur, pedestri sermone finitur. Prologue and epilogue are accordingly excepted from the poetical accentuation, and are accented according to the usual system, as the first word shows; for אישׁ has, in correct editions, Tebir, a smaller distinctive, which does not belong to the poetical accentuation. The writer does not begin with ויהי, as the writers of the historico-prophetical books, who are conscious that they are relating a portion of the connection of the collective Israelitish history, e.g., Sa1 1:1, אישׁ ויהי, but, as the writer of the book of Esther (Est 2:5) for similar reasons, with היה אישׁ, because he is beginning a detached extra-Israelitish history.
Open source ↗The history of Job begins here with an account, I. Of his great piety in general (Job 1:1), and in a particular instance (Job 1:5). II. Of his great prosperity (Job 1:2-4). III. Of the malice of Satan against him, and the permission he obtained to try his constancy (Job 1:6-12). IV. Of the surprising troubles that befel him, the ruin of his estate (Job 1:13-17), and the death of his children (Job 1:18, Job 1:19). V. Of his exemplary patience and piety under these troubles (Job 1:20-22). In all this he is set forth for an example of suffering affliction, from which no prosperity can secure us, but through which integrity and uprightness will preserve us.
Open source ↗1:19 That the wind . . . hit the house on all sides suggests that Job and his children were settled farmers living in houses rather than nomads living in tents.
Open source ↗Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my sons. Joseph is gone and Simeon is no more. Now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is going against me!”
The king was shaken and went up to the gate chamber and wept. And as he walked, he cried out, “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”
in which you used to walk when you conformed to the ways of this world and of the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience.
The rest of them fled into the city of Aphek, where the wall fell on twenty-seven thousand of the remaining men. Ben-hadad also fled to the city and hid in an inner room.
Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Then he pushed with all his might, and the temple fell on the lords and all the people in it. So in his death he killed more than he had killed in his life.
When the islanders saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “Surely this man is a murderer. Although he was saved from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.”
The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its collapse!”