CONTENTS
The Book opens with an account of Job, his piety, riches, integrity, and religious care of his children. Next follows, an account of Satan's malice against Job, and his permission to tempt him. The Chapter closes with the melancholy relation of the death of his children, and the calmness of mind Job manifested under these afflictions.
(1) В¶ There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
The name of Job carries with it somewhat of signification, for, according to some writers, it is derived from an Hebrew root, implying love. And, no doubt, the character of Job made him eminently so. If the Reader be not much acquainted with the scripture relation of places, it may not be amiss to tell him, that Uz was situated to the East of Chaldea; and though it probably was not the same with Ur of the Chaldees, from whence Abram was called, yet it could not be far from it. So that, in the very opening of the book of Job, a sweet thought ariseth, both from his name, and the place of his birth; namely, in the gift of the Gentile church to the Lord Jesus by the Father, from the earliest ages souls were to be gathered from the heathen world, to form a numerous train in the throng of the redeemed. Psalms 2:8; Isaiah 49:6. By the expression of perfect and upright, is not meant sinless perfection, but a general sincerity of conduct.