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Job_1:19 And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
Ver. 19. And behold, there came a great wind] The devil, doubtless, was in this wind (as he is, by Divine permission, "the prince of the power of the air," Eph_2:2, and can thereby do much mischief); what wonder, then, though it were a great wind, since spirited by him, and came ( ventus a veniendo), came on amain, and with a force, as being driven on by the devil. It was a wonderful wind (belike a whirlwind), and hath, therefore, a "behold" set upon it; such a wind as the relater had never known before; the Rabbis say, that he was so frightened with it, that no sooner had he made an end of his report of it to Job, but he fell down dead at his feet. Sure it is, that he relateth the matter punctually and graphically, with singular diligence, and without that moderation and making the best of things at first, as in such cases is usual, when parents are first made acquainted with the sudden death of their children, or other sad accidents that have befallen them. This messenger cluttereth out all at once, being thereunto set on and induced by Satan (as Lavater thinketh) to stir up Job’s stomach, and to make him break off that so well twisted thread of his patience.
From the wilderness] Of Idumea, or Arabia, called Deserta. The devil, who haunteth dry and desert places, was the Aeolus that sent it. Let us bless that God (the maker and master of these meteors, and of all things else) who bindeth up such an enemy and boundeth such a power.
And smote the four corners of the house] This was extraordinary, and, therefore, the more dreadful; God seeming to fulfil upon Job and his children what he threateneth in the law, Deu_28:59, I will make their plagues wonderful. But what saith Solomon, and that after long debate with himself about occurrents of this nature? "For all this I considered in mine heart, even to declare all this, that the righteous and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them," Ecc_9:1-2 by externals we cannot judge aright of eternals. Let it be our care to "lay hold on eternal life"; and then sudden death can do us no hurt; no guest cometh unawares to him who keeps a constant table.
And it fell upon the young men, and they are dead] No doubt but they were miserably mauled and dismembered by the fall, so that they were pulled forth piece-meal, and it could hardly be known which was which, as we say. The like death befell Scopas, a rich and noble man of Thessaly, together with his guests, all crushed and killed together by the ruin of that room where they were feasting, and fearing no such danger, as Cicero telleth us: Simonides was at that feast, but was at that instant happily called out by two young men that came to speak with him (Cic. lib. 2, de Orator). Luther had the like deliverance, by a special providence, as Mr Fox relateth. But so had not those Londoners, in the reign of King William II, who perished by a terrible tempest, which blew down suddenly six hundred and six houses in that chief city (Acts and Mon. fol. 787. Stowe’s Chron.). No more had those that died by the fall of part of a house in Blackfriars, where and while Drury, a Popish priest, was preaching, who, together with a hundred more Papists, his hearers, had there their passport: this happened in the year 1623. And the like we had lately at Witney, in Oxfordshire, where a scurrilous, blasphemous comedy was, by the fall of the room wherein it was noted, Feb. 3, 1652, turned into a tragedy, as ending with the deaths of six, and injuries of about sixty, who were bruised and maimed, and some, as it were, half dead, carried away by their friends. The narrative whereof, together with what was preached there in three sermons on that occasion from Rom_1:18, is set forth by Mr John Rowe, lecturer in that town, in his book called Tragicomedia.