Job 1:b-3

Job 1:1b

וְהָיָה הָאִישׁ הַהוּא תָּם וְיָשָׁר וִירֵא אֱלֹהִים וְסָר מֵרָע

 This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.

Spiritually, Job had nothing to be sorry about. Although he was born in sin as we are and freely admitted it (7:21), there was no part of the law that Job had not fulfilled. How can we say this? Nowhere in the book is there any reference to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or the Israelites, nor any rumor of Israel's exodus from Egypt. In fact, all the evidence points to Job living long before the exodus--probably at least four hundred years before. That means that in Job's time, there were no Ten Commandments yet. There were no laws about sacrifices, priests, cities of refuge, ceremonial cleanliness, bathing after leprosy, circumcision, or any of the other requirements of the law. There was only the Noahitic covenant (Genesis 9:8-17) in which God promised unconditionally never again to destroy the world by means of a flood (although the fear of such a thing is mentioned by Jesus as being a sign of the Last Days, Luke 21:25).

Job 1:2-3

וַיִּוָּלְדוּ לוֹ שִׁבְעָה בָנִים וְשָׁלוֹשׁ בָּנוֹת

וַיְהִי מִקְנֵהוּ שִׁבְעַת אַלְפֵי צֹאן וּשְׁלֹשֶׁת אַלְפֵי גְמַלִּים

וַחֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת צֶמֶד בָּקָר וַחֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת אֲתוֹנוֹת וַעֲבֻדָּה רַבָּה

מְאֹד וַיְהִי הָאִישׁ הַהוּא גָּדוֹל מִכָּל בְּנֵי קֶדֶם

2 He had seven sons and three daughters, 3 and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.

Job had a lot to be happy about. He was rich. In a time when people didn't use coins or cash, he had enormous wealth: thousands of animals, servants to take care of them and fields to feed them. He also had a fairly big family of ten children ("ten" here isn't a symbolic number: notice that "ten" isn't in the text). What do you suppose was important to Job? His wealth? His family? Certainly he was concerned about both – but look carefully at our passage: "He feared God and shunned evil."

Job's fear of God wasn't just the kind of fear we normally think about. His fear was a respect for God. He was afraid of what God would do to him because of his sins – we all must be – but Job knew that the answer to all of his sins was also the very same God. Job was "blameless." Are you blameless before God? Was Job? Later in this book, Job admitted that he was a sinful man. He cried out to God, "Show me where I have been wrong" (Job 6:24). On the outside, Job seemed blameless to everyone who knew him, but he still knew that on the inside he was a sinful human being who needed a Savior.