Job 1:3

"His possessions also were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the children of the east."

Key Reflection

This verse paints a picture of immense material wealth and social standing, highlighting Job’s prosperity in the context of ancient Eastern culture where possession of livestock and a large household denoted high status. Such abundance symbolizes not just physical wealth but also the potential for spiritual complacency and the test of one's faith against material temptations.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

His substance -Margin, or “cattle.” The word used hereמקנהmı̂qnehis derived fromקנהqânâh, to gain or acquire, to buy or purchase, and properly means anything acquired or purchased - property, possessions, riches. The wealth of nomadic tribes, however, consisted mostly in flocks and herds, and hence the word in the Scripture signifies, almost exclusively, property in cattle. The word, says Gesenius, is used “strictly” to denote sheep, goats, and neat cattle, excluding beasts of burden (compare Greekκτῆνοςktēnos, herd, used here by the Septuagint), though sometimes the word includes asses and camels, as in this place.

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