Job 1:16 - Exposition

While he was yet speaking ; literally, he yet speaking ; ἔτι τούτον λαλοῦντος , LXX . The writer hurries his words to express the rapidity with which one announcement followed another (see Job 1:17 , Job 1:18 ). There came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven. "The fire of God" is undoubtedly lightning (comp. Numbers 11:1-3 ; 2 Kings 1:10 , 2 Kings 1:14 ; Psalms 78:21 ). This Satan, under permission, might wield, as being "the prince of the power of the air" ( Ephesians 2:2 ): but there is, no doubt, something very extraordinary in a storm extending over the pastures occupied by nine thousand sheep, and destroying the whole of them (Cook) Still, it cannot be said that such a storm is impossible; and perhaps the damage done was not greater than that which followed on the seventh Egyptian plague (see Exodus 9:18-26 ). And hath burned up the sheep, and the servants ; literally, the young men ; i.e. the shepherds who were in attendance upon the sheep. And consumed them ; literally, devoured them. Fire is often said to "devour" what it destroys. "The Egyptians," says Herodotus, "believe fire to be a live animal, which eats whatever it can seize, and then, glutted with the food, dies with the matter which it feeds upon" (Herod; 3.16). And I only am escaped alone to tell thee (see the comment on Job 1:15 ).