And there was a day when his sons and his daughters [were] eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house:
Ver. 13. And there was a day] A dismal day it proved to Job, "a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness," as Zephaniah 1:15. That subtle serpent set upon mischief, purposely picketh out such a time to do it as wherein such a sad and sudden change was least of all looked for; and then lays on amain (as if he were wood) with the hail shot, hell shot of sharpest afflictions. He knows well, that as mercies and deliverances, the more unexpected they are the more welcome, as Abraham's receiving his son Isaac after a sort from the dead; Israel's eduction out of Egypt, when they were forsaken by their hopes; Jonah's being drawn out of the belly of hell (as he phraseth it, Jon 2:2); so crosses, the more suddenly they befall men the more they amate them; and finding weak minds secure, they make them miserable, leave them desperate.
When his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine] Wherewith, if their hearts were overcharged (and what more easy? the devil foiled our first parents by inordinate appetite, and finding it then so successful a weapon, he maketh use of it still), that day might come upon them unawares, Luke 21:34. That was Satan's drift surely, however it happened; and so to destroy body and soul together. But it is to be hoped that he was disappointed in his aim; and that death was sent in haste to Job's children, as an invitant to a better feast; and that they might do as our Saviour did, who being at a feast at Bethany, fell into a meditation and discourse of his death and burial, John 12:7,8. Sure it is, that although the wicked may die sinning, and shall die in their sins, John 5:21, and so be killed with death, as Jezebel's children were, Revelation 2:23; yet God's children shall not die before their time, Ecclesiastes 7:17, or till the best time, till their work is done, Revelation 11:7. No malice of man or devil can antedate my end a minute (saith one), while my Master hath work for me to do. It is the happiness of a saint, that he is sure not to die till that time, when as, if he were but rightly informed, he would even desire to die. Happy is he, that after due preparation is passed through the gates of death ere he be aware, as Job's children were.