Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,
Ver. 20. Then Job arose, and rent his mantle] He stirred not at the three first doleful tidings, but this fourth startleth him; for he was neither a Stoic nor a stock. His strength was not the strength of stones, nor his flesh of brass, Job 6:12, that he should bear blows, and never feel pain, or make moan; that he should be silent in darkness, 1 Samuel 2:9, and not cry when God bound him, Job 36:11. This Stoical apathy or indolency (condemning all affections in that their wise man, who, as Cicero very well saith, as yet was never found) Jeremiah justly complaineth of, Jeremiah 5:3, and the Peripatetics utterly disliked; teaching, that wisdom doth not remove affections, but only reduce them to a mediocrity. Job kept the mean between despising the chastening of the Lord, and fainting when rebuked by him, Hebrews 12:5. See my Love Tokens, pp. 37, 38, &c.
And shaved his head] In token of his very great sorrow. See Jer 7:29 Micah 1:16, "Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle." See Trapp on " Mic 1:16 " When Germanicus died, divers foreign princes shaved their beards, to show their grief (Sueton.). Plutarch telleth us that Alexander the Great, at the funeral of Hephestion, his favourite, not only shaved himself, but clipped his horses' and mules' hair; yea, he plucked down also the battlements of the walls of the city, that they might seem to mourn too; but this savoured of too much sullenness. How much better his Macedonians, who, being once sensible of his displeasure, laid by their arms, put on their mourning attire, came trooping to his tent, where for almost three days they remained, with loud cries, and abundance of tears, testifying their remorse for offending him, beseeching his pardon, which at last they gained. God calleth to baldness for sin, Isaiah 22:12, which, in other cases, was forbidden, Leviticus 19:27; Lev 21:5 Deuteronomy 14:1. This Job performed here; for he knew that although God afflicteth sometimes for his own glory, John 9:3, sometimes for trial or exercise of his people's graces, yet sin is ever at the bottom, as the meritorious cause of what they suffer; and if he did not duly consider it before, Zophar gave him to understand that God exacted of him less than his iniquity had deserved, Job 11:6 .
And fell down upon the ground] This shows that Job arose not before to this end, that, with a stout and stubborn gesture of the body, he might withstand God; but rather, that he might, with greater lowliness and humility, submit to his justice, and implore his mercy: he fell down upon the ground and worshipped, saith the text; that is, he fell upon the ground to worship. He fell not all along on the earth, as Saul did, out of despondency and despair, after that he had heard the devil preaching his funeral; he lay like an ox on the earth, in the fulness of his stature, as the original hath it, 1 Samuel 28:20; but, as humbling himself under the mighty hand of God, who would raise him up in due season, 1 Peter 5:6, and as reverently and religiously submitting to his will. And it is probably observed, saith a late expositor, Mr Caryl, out of another, that the ancient prophets and holy men were called Nephalim procidentes, or prostrantes, that is, prostrates, or railers-down, because in their worship they usually fell down upon the earth, to humble themselves before the Lord.