The Lord Gives, The Lord Takes Away: Job 1:13-19
Introduction: The Cushioned Worldview
We live in a soft age. Our entire civilization is a massive, concerted effort to insulate ourselves from the sharp edges of reality. We have built for ourselves a padded room, complete with climate control, retirement plans, and advanced medical procedures, all designed to keep suffering, chaos, and death at a respectable distance. We believe, deep in our bones, that we are entitled to a life of uninterrupted comfort. And so, when the padding is ripped away, when the raw, terrible sovereignty of God breaks through our flimsy defenses, our first response is often a kind of bewildered outrage.
This is because the modern secular mind, and tragically, much of the modern evangelical mind, operates on the foundational assumption of the prosperity gospel. It may not be the crass health-and-wealth version you see on television, but it is a prosperity gospel nonetheless. It is the quiet, settled conviction that if you are a decent person, if you follow the rules, then God, or the universe, or whatever you call it, owes you a life free from catastrophic loss. When that contract is violated, the only recourse is to either despair or to put God in the dock and accuse Him of mismanagement.
The book of Job is God's answer to this cushioned worldview. It is a controlled demolition of every self-righteous, man-centered system of thought. Job is not a philosophical treatise on the abstract problem of evil. It is a historical account of a righteous man being systematically dismantled by a series of divine permissions. It forces us to confront the bedrock reality of the universe: God is absolutely sovereign, and we are not. He does not owe us an explanation. He owes us nothing but what He has promised in His covenant, and even that is sheer grace. This passage is where the sledgehammer of God's hard providence first strikes the beautiful edifice of Job's life. And as we watch it unfold, we must ask ourselves if our own faith is built on the rock of God's character, or on the sand of our circumstances.
What we are about to witness is a rapid-fire succession of calamities. Four messengers, each bearing news of total devastation, arrive one on top of the other. This is not random chance. This is a meticulously orchestrated assault, and as the prologue has already informed us, the ultimate authority behind it is not Satan, but God Himself. Satan is the dog, but God holds the leash. This is a truth that is offensive to our modern sensibilities, but it is the only truth that can provide any real comfort in the midst of the storm.
The Text
Now it happened that on the day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their brother, the firstborn, a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them. They also struck down the young men with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” While this one was still speaking, another also came and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the young men and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” While this one was still speaking, another also came and said, “The Chaldeans set up three companies and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the young men with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” While this one was still speaking, another also came and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their brother, the firstborn, and behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and touched the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
(Job 1:13-19 LSB)
The First Blow: Human Wickedness (vv. 13-15)
The scene opens with a picture of idyllic prosperity and familial joy, which serves to heighten the tragedy.
"Now it happened that on the day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their brother, the firstborn, a messenger came to Job and said, 'The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them. They also struck down the young men with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.'" (Job 1:13-15 LSB)
Job's children are feasting. This is the picture of blessing, the very thing Job had been so careful to consecrate to God. The timing is precise. The assault comes not in a time of want, but in a time of plenty. The first messenger reports an attack by the Sabeans. These were likely marauding tribesmen from Arabia. This is not a natural disaster; this is raw, calculated, human sin. Men with swords, driven by greed, have stolen Job's property and murdered his servants.
Here we must confront a crucial theological point. God is sovereign over the sinful acts of men. The Sabeans were morally culpable for their raid. They were wicked men doing a wicked thing, and they will answer to God for it. But their wicked actions were not outside the scope of God's eternal decree. God did not just permit this; He ordained it. He wove the sinful choices of the Sabeans into His perfect tapestry. As Joseph would later say to his brothers, "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20). This is the doctrine of concurrence. God works all things, even the wrath of man, after the counsel of His own will. He does this without being the author of sin or violating the will of the creature. To deny this is to make God a helpless spectator in His own universe, wringing His hands as evil men run amok. That is not the God of the Bible.
Notice the refrain: "I alone have escaped to tell you." This detail is not incidental. It is designed for maximum psychological impact. There is no hope of a remnant, no possibility of recovery. Everything is gone. The messenger is a living monument to the totality of the disaster. This pattern will repeat, each blow landing before the previous one has even been fully processed.
The Second Blow: The Fire of God (v. 16)
Before Job can even absorb the first report, the second arrives, escalating the disaster from the human to the divine realm.
"While this one was still speaking, another also came and said, 'The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the young men and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.'" (Job 1:16 LSB)
The messenger identifies the cause directly: "the fire of God." This was likely lightning, but the language is theological. This is what the insurance companies, in a moment of unwitting orthodoxy, still call an "act of God." The messenger, and Job himself, would have understood this as a direct strike from Heaven. The first disaster could be blamed on wicked men, but this one has God's name written all over it.
This is where the rubber of our theology meets the road of reality. Is God in charge of the weather? Does He direct the lightning and the hurricane? The modern mind, steeped in meteorological science, wants to say no. We prefer to think of these things as the result of impersonal atmospheric pressures and weather fronts. But the Bible is clear: "If disaster befalls a city, has not the LORD done it?" (Amos 3:6). God is the one who sends the rain, the snow, the hail, and the lightning. He is not a passive observer of meteorological phenomena; He is the sovereign conductor of the entire symphony.
This truth demolishes any attempt to create a neat separation between "natural evil" and "moral evil." From the standpoint of God's sovereignty, the distinction is meaningless. The sinful raid of the Sabeans and the lightning from heaven are both instruments in the hand of the same God, accomplishing the same ultimate purpose. Satan may have been the secondary agent, but the messenger correctly identifies the primary cause. This is a terrifying thought if God is your enemy, but it is a profound comfort if He is your Father. Nothing that happens to you is random or meaningless. It has all passed through His hands first.
The Third Blow: Organized Evil (v. 17)
The assault immediately returns to the human level, but with a greater degree of organization and ferocity.
"While this one was still speaking, another also came and said, 'The Chaldeans set up three companies and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the young men with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.'" (Job 1:17 LSB)
The Chaldeans were not random marauders; they were a formidable people from Babylonia, known for their military prowess. They come in "three companies," indicating a planned, strategic assault. This is not just opportunistic banditry; it is organized warfare. The attack is comprehensive, wiping out Job's camels, which were a primary source of his great wealth, and again, murdering his servants.
The relentless, overlapping nature of these reports is a key part of the trial. Job is given no time to recover, no moment to catch his breath. It is a spiritual blitzkrieg. This is how temptation often works. It is not a single, isolated trial, but a cascade of them, designed to overwhelm our defenses and drive us to despair. The enemy wants us to believe that God has utterly abandoned us, that we are caught in a spiral of chaos from which there is no escape.
But again, we must see the hand of God. He is sovereign over the military strategies of the Chaldeans just as He was over the greed of the Sabeans. The kings of the earth, with all their armies and their plans, are but pawns on His chessboard. "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will" (Proverbs 21:1). There is no square inch of reality, from the smallest quark to the most powerful empire, over which Christ does not say, "Mine."
The Final Blow: The Great Wind (vv. 18-19)
The final messenger brings the news that crushes the heart. The previous losses were financial and logistical. This one is personal and ultimate.
"While this one was still speaking, another also came and said, 'Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their brother, the firstborn, and behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and touched the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you.'" (Job 1:18-19 LSB)
The messenger carefully repeats the setting: his children were feasting, a picture of life and joy. This is now the scene of their death. A "great wind," likely a tornado or a sudden, violent squall, strikes the house. The description is significant: it "touched the four corners of the house." This was not a partial collapse. The destruction was total and instantaneous, coming from every direction at once. This was a supernatural storm, a clear demonstration of overwhelming power.
With this, everything is gone. His wealth has been stripped away by man and by nature. And now, his children, all ten of them, are dead in a single moment. The line of his inheritance has been cut off. The future he had built has been erased. The refrain "I alone have escaped to tell you" now carries its most devastating weight. One survivor, to bring the news that there are no other survivors. This is the very definition of desolation.
Here, the cushioned worldview finally shatters. No amount of positive thinking or therapeutic platitudes can withstand this. This is raw, unvarnished tragedy. And the text forces us to confront the fact that God is sovereign over it all. He is the Lord of the wind and the waves. He gives, and He takes away. This is the hard truth that Job will have to wrestle with, and it is the same truth we must cling to when our own worlds fall apart.
The Sovereignty of God in Suffering
So what are we to do with a passage like this? First, we must reject the satanic lie that God is not in control. The alternative to a sovereign God is not a kinder, gentler God. The alternative is a universe governed by blind, pitiless chance. That is no comfort at all. The only anchor in the storm is the knowledge that the storm itself is being orchestrated by our loving, heavenly Father for His glory and for our ultimate good.
Second, we must see that these events are a foreshadowing of the cross. The greatest tragedy in human history was the crucifixion of the Son of God. There, the ultimate "fire of God," His righteous wrath against sin, fell from heaven. There, wicked men, the Romans and the Jews, carried out their evil plans. There, the powers of darkness seemed to triumph. And yet, it was all according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23). God took the greatest evil and turned it into the greatest good: our salvation.
Because of the cross, we know that God is for us, even when our circumstances scream that He is against us. He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32). This means that even in the midst of our own Job-like trials, we can know that God is working all things together for our good. He is conforming us to the image of His Son. He is teaching us to trust Him, not His gifts. He is stripping away our idols so that we might have Him alone.
Job did not have the cross to look back on, but he had the promise of a Redeemer to look forward to. And in his darkest hour, that is where his faith would ultimately land. Our trials are never meaningless. They are the chisel in the hand of the divine sculptor, shaping us into the image of the suffering Servant who became the triumphant King. Therefore, we do not lose heart. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.