The Life and Times of Job (Part 4): What on Earth happened to Job?

What on Earth happened to Job?

So far, while this study has been enlightening, I'm not doing so well narrowing down when and where Job lived according to the parameters at hand in scripture.  Where he lived: high probability western Saudi Arabia, with a fair but not perfect match in Eastern Jordan, perhaps along the border with Saudi Arabia.  When he lived: neither possibility makes me very comfortable.  As much as I like some of the numerical and circumstantial fits of Job living around the days of Peleg, analyzing genealogies compels me to favor Job as a third (or more) generation descendant of Abraham, possibly a contemporary of Moses' father/forefather, Aram.

Ok, so on to "what on earth happened to Job?"  With exposition there is often a degree of error associated with what can be gleaned by paying close attention to the text.  We assume higher degrees of deliberation in choosing particular words than perhaps a normal writer would use, and there is always the possibility of reading too much in.  We proceed with that disclaimer.

Job 1:1-4

We note that, after discussing his spiritual and material wealth, Job is described as the greatest man among all the people of the East.  That is quite a statement since it doesn't except political leaders (i.e. kings) from this comparison.  It may not be so far-fetched when the Septuagint names his comforters as being kings and princes in their own right.  They're rich, at least, because few men could simply leave their homes and work for a week just to sit in dust with their friend.

This may also indicate that in a barbarous world, Job may have had strategic alliances with some that suddenly failed.  His enormous wealth and renown may also suggest that he was not at all an accidental target, but that the wolves had gathered for the moment the shepherd left the flock unattended.

Job 1:9-10

Satan remarks: ⁹ “Does Job fear God for nothing?” ¹⁰ “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.

The hedge is a common feature in agrarian societies.  It isn't so helpful as a windbreak, but it is a natural fence which, because of its density, can keep out a great number of small pests.  It is a protective defense and shield, so that when God tells Israel, comparing it to a vineyard, that there is nothing more he could have done to ensure its success yet it failed, he's going to wipe the slate.  In Isaiah 5:5, he says that he will remove the hedge and so it will be destroyed.  The wall keeps larger beasts and people from entering to trample it, but in many respects the hedge is far more necessary given the comprehensive and combined damage the smaller creatures will do to the plants.  So in Is 5, the hedge is removed first, resulting in effective destruction of the vineyard, presumably from pests.  The trampling that occurs after the wall is next removed, compacts the dirt rendering it less easily impermeable for later planting.

In Is 5, both protection and cultivation are critical to the success of the vineyard.  God installed protective elements, and then carefully cultivated.  With Job, Satan's suggestion may be as commonplace as it is significant, that God placed protection around Job preventing loss of anything he did, and then caused everything he did to increase far beyond what Job was capable of accomplishing alone.

Job, therefore, Satan claims, does not fear God for nothing, recognizing the obvious supernatural power behind his protection and increase.  This isn't the sort of work you first do for yourself, recognize you were also lucky, pay a little lip service to God in thanks, and continue about your day.  We throw out the word "blessing" in conversation a lot, conceitedly feeling that it was mostly us, but God threw in the extra measure.

And if it is fairly obvious to many that God is over Job, then this may contribute to his renown through the East: this is a man shielded by the gods (if they don't know the God).  Those working to tear him down, however, will scoff at this and look for any secular explanation as to why he's been succesful (which allows them to plan how to get advantage).  When they see a crack in the material protections, they exploit it.  Perhaps the Sabeans and the Chaldeans saw a very wide crack.

This may be reading far into Satan's claim of a hedge, but it is notable that in the space of just one day, after Satan is permitted to remove this hedge, two separate militarized groups immediately descend on Job's holdings.

Four Calamities

In Satan's opening salvo, Job suffers exactly what Satan proposed to God: Satan stretched out his hand and struck everything that Job had.

In Job 1:13-15 the Sabeans attacked in force and removed Job's 1000 oxen and 500+ donkeys from his cultivated lands.

In Job 1:16 "the fire of God" fell from the heavens and burned up the 7,000 sheep and servants

In Job 1:17 the Chaldeans commited a three pronged attack and stole Job's 1,000 camels.  This implies a certain level of military coordination to achieve.  Can this possibly indicate state sponsorship and border incursions?

In Job 1:18 a mighty wind sweeps in from the desert and strikes the four corners of the house and it collapses on everyone inside.

 We've already covered the raider calamities.  One thing I note is that no explanation is necessary regarding that the Sabeans and Chaldeans were there in the first place.  Quite probably they were known in that region.  The news is that they operated now against Job.  Beyond that, there's probably not much more to glean from them.

The Fires of God

Concerning the destruction of the sheep.  Let's look at some numbers.  We've already established that, having farmland, Job is not a nomad.  You have three possibilities for how the sheep are positioned prior to the fires coming down.

1) Grazing grounds are shared between all members of the community.  Sheep roam freely from the area they have picked clean to an area with fresh plants to eat.  Flocks may mix with other's flocks and the shepherds must keep them separated.  As we see with Abraham and Lot, the more sheep, the more shepherds, the more the chances of arguments escalating into violence.  This is not optimal, especially where big flocks are concerned, but may be unavoidable for nomadic herders who don't own the land.  If the ground is technically not owned, Job's shepherds consolidate the sheep and keep others away.

2) Job controls the grazing grounds.  So that the sheep keep eating all year, there must be enough ground to cover regrowth as well as what the sheep are currently eating.  Here, the sheep may disperse freely across the extent of the ground.  This offers no protection for individual sheep since there must be fewer shepherds than sheep.

3) Job controls the grazing grounds.  For protection the sheep are organized into one massive group or clusters protected by the shepherds.  The single or multiple groups travel from one grazing site to the next.

Concerning option 2, while a farmer today may fence off a large portion of land to discourage cattle escaping and casual rustlers, it seems clear that with at least a Sabean and Chaldean presence nearby, human protection is necessary.  The sheep were probably not allowed to roam freely, but consolidated to maximize who can be protected, and the protective shepherd force around them.

So either option 1 or 3, the sheep are grouped together in one or more groups.  Likely, with 7,000 sheep, some ordering would be necessary with some shepherds assigned to this or that subset group for clarity of who is watching who.

This is not necessarily an idle question.  We want to figure out how much ground was hit with the "fires of God".  Bear in mind, these are "back of the (digital) envelope" calculations and don't account for differences in grazing ground quality and expert opinions on how sheep are to be distributed.

We have 7,000 sheep.  At an approximate minimum, you will need 1sq meter per sheep, which totals 7,000 sq meters, which equates to an 84m by 84m plot of land if the sheep are completely bunched together.  7,000 sheep in the same location is likely to be very difficult, so the sheep may be organized into bunches in the hundreds, with distance between the flocks, which means a wider area space covered, if the fires of God destroy all of them.

Modern conventional thinking is that 4050 sq meters (1 acre) can support 6 livestock units where each sheep is classed as 1.6 units.  So, the area space required would be 7,000 sheep x 1.6 lu / sheep x 4050 sq meters / 6 lu = 7,560,000 sq meters (about 1,850 acres or 7.56 sq km).  This thinking probably represents how much land is necessary to sustainably support the sheep without risking overgrazing.  Since option 2 (above) is unlikely, the sheep are likely not evenly spread over this space.

Assuming Job controls an area space at least this large, groups of sheep, however, may be clustered in any fashion throughout the land.

So it appears that at a minimum, the fires of God affected 7,000 sq meters of land, and at a maximum would have had to saturate 7.56 sq km.

In most pictures I see of sheep grazing, the average distribution (very inaccurate) may be something like 100 sq meters per sheep.  This yields 700,000 sq meters.  Factor in distances between groupings of sheep the figure may come out to just under 1 sq kilometer.

Even with a distribution over 1 sq km, this is then an enormous amount of land that the fires of God must have affected.  As point of comparison, the largest contender excavation site for the location of Sodom, covers 1 sq km for everything, inside and outside of the city walls.  The fires of God that destroyed Job's flocks were possibly on the same scale as the destruction of a city.

Continuing along those lines, outside of Sodom and Gomorrah, what other local (non-flood) catastrophes of similar scale appear in scripture?  I'm having a hard time thinking of any.  Ninevah would have been that and more, had God not changed his intent upon their repentance.  Biblically speaking, this then ranks up there in terms of displays of raw power.  It's not a simple thing how Job lost his sheep.

Added, courtesy of Don F.: it is noted that Satan is the one granted permission to afflict Job, within limitations. God does not do anything to Job, after removing the "hedge". Too, Satan nowhere is shown to have power of nature, or work miracles. The suggestion is therefore that he must have been confined to using natural means somehow. The implication is then that there are a very limited number of natural events to cause the destruction of the sheep. Possibly a volcano? He made this allowance somewhat frequently in a conversation (much welcomed) generally skeptical of the conclusions herein of many passages. Noted: however, in Matt 24, Satan apparently is able to delegate miraculous powers to surrogates to deceive people, so it can't be ruled out that he has some power over nature. Don F. presented a stronger case why Satan doesn't have this power, but I can't remember it fully.

The Wind from the Desert

For the wind calamity, there's not much to deduce except to suggest that houses, even ancient houses, built in proximity to desert areas where the possibilities of wind storms and sand storms are increased, would be normally built to better specifications than those that aren't.  Especially for people of means, particularly one who is described as the greatest among the people of the East.  These are likely mud brick houses, though they may include elements of stone or wood for wealthy dwellings where the wood may be more ornamental than structural in deployment.

The servant describes that the wind affected the four corners of the house (which may simply be an appropriate euphemism for the totality of its effect) and then the house collapsed, which would indicate that the walls which are the primary supports for most smaller buildings and any interior columns necessary for larger structures, (especially if there is more than one floor), were all knocked off base enough so that the upper parts, included the roof, collapsed in their entirety, rather than partially, killing everyone inside.

My ignorant thinking works this way.  Brick and stone structures are more rigid and stand up better to elements like wind force than wood or other materials with more of a give which handle earthquakes (among other things) well.  More with stone and brick buildings, the lower parts of the support structures (i.e. walls) are likely to be thicker than the supported parts.  As was common even up to medieval times, angling the wall inward even slightly lends more structural stability.

For a strong airflow from one direction, without knowing more, it seems conceivable that if one wall was knocked in by the wind, the roof would fold up with it, or on top of it.  But any interior walls have a better chance of maintaining their shape not having been directly exposed to the wind.  Picture a lean-to shed.  Put up a single wall, then lean a roof against it, on the ground.  Had you started with two walls but collapsed one, it might resemble this.  Because it is not evenly distributed, rubble underneath can prevent more rubble from falling.  So the house appears more pushed over, with the back walls often still standing with the possibility that the way the roof collapses there are places where a person may be less injured or able to survive.  Of course, sustained winds may still exact a further toll on the structure, but the way the roof and immediate wall collapse can act like a wedge forcing further airflow up and over the building.

What is extremely destructive is when the airflow changes direction, which can affect different parts of the same structure at different times, distributing heavy damage more evenly.  Hurricanes and especially tornados do this.  This may have been an exceptionally powerful and different sort of wind.  Conceivably this could destabilize the entire support structure of the house causing it to the collapse in on itself.

At this point, not even being a structural engineer, this is my own speculation.

Job's Reaction

What is now somewhat interesting to me is that, although Job is likely in shock at this point (though he has the presence of mind to pray and bless God anyway), is that throughout this book, there is no further discussion over the details of what has happened.  These anomalous events are accepted, and only the resulting loss considered.  Consider the Tower of Siloam that fell on people, or the martyrs that the Romans slaughtered on the horns of the temple altar.  We have our 9/11.  Jesus referred to these events as examples likely because they were fresh in people's minds and caused such consternation and conversation.  These are horrific events that stay in the mind, forcing self examination because of their uniqueness.  Just like Job, they want to discuss the root cause (their sin?).  They want to know why?  But with 9/11, as likely with the Tower of Siloam, there would have been people looking to examine the structure, what exactly happened; this is so out of the ordinary.  They would consider a proximate (how it happened physically) as well as the ultimate cause (why God allowed it to happen).  The more unusual and sudden the event, the more both are pondered until an answer along either vein presents itself.

On the one hand, you ponder the proximate cause only when you are convinced there is no ultimate cause. In our country, 9/11 would have been a good time, amidst asking why did God allow this, to reexamine our relationship with Him to establish whether God should bless and protect us.  We focused on the proximate cause of the terrorists, thinking ourselves relatively blameless, and ignored the chance to get to the ultimate cause of why bad things happen to seemingly good people.

Conversely, you ponder the ultimate cause only when you are familiar with the proximate causes.  It is not that it happened, but that it happened to you, that is significant.  Job focuses entirely on the ultimate cause (or  rather the lack of any apparent cause).

Job doesn't seem to blink much as to the particulars of what happened, but rather focuses on the indications of God's disfavor.

For me that strikes me as odd, unless (hypothetically) there was something about each of these disasters that was expected or common, but just not expected for him.  Sabean and Chaldean raiders were a part of life to be protected and devised against.  But God had protected Job from the common threats.  Wind from the desert, same thing.  At some point there's nothing you can do.  That the wind destroyed Job's family is more alarming than that the wind destroyed someone's family.

A 1 sq km rain of fiery destruction across the landscape, killing 7,000 sheep and all but one shepherd, down to the man, such that no one around could have missed such mass destruction, should at least have seemed out of the ordinary, a paradigm shift.  But there's no evidence of fleeing, that this catastrophe might be repeated on another family, and instead Jobs friends come to him and sit calmly while his wife stays.

And shortly thereafter, when Job is restored, he has more children, and far more servants, and the community is restored.

Why does Job stay?  Why are there people around him, not begging him to leave?

The only thing I can think of is that, either he's so despondent and eager to die that staying their will accomplish this (beyond his wish that he were dead or never born, there's no indication he expects dying if he stays), or there really is no better place to go and that even the fires of God have some place in their set of experience.

Job doesn’t appear phased by the manner of the destructions, just the personal enormity.  This is in contrast to us who would be first astonished but something of such magnitude, beyond our own loss.  We would be paralyzed, but Job (at least after a week) can think clearly enough to analyze his sin and righteousness and deem his misery unwarranted.

Which begs the next question: under what set of circumstances would the fires of God be observable in such a way that Job wouldn't be shocked that it happened, but just that it happened to him?