Acts of God
Satan leaves God’s presence, and mayhem commences. Not right away, perhaps. We don’t know exactly how much time passes between the time God hands Job over to Satan and the time disaster strikes Job’s life. The Message says “Sometime later.” The NRSV says” One day.” How long is “sometime later”? And when is “one day”? It doesn’t sound immediate, but the time frame isn’t clear.
In fact, we don’t even know when 3 of the 4 disasters occurred or in what order. All we know that the calamities are reported to Job during one of his kids’ ragers.
These parties the kids host seem to be disproportionately important. Maybe that would mean something to the original readers, provide some type of clue about when things happened or what kind of frivolities ensued. Parties and holidays are helpful cultural markers, and I’m betting this was (the OT equivalent of) a Christmas Job would not soon forget.
So that’s what we get: one day when Job’s kids were having a party, some messengers started showing up at Job’s house. And we do know a little about the messengers.
These messengers deliver bad news. Really bad news.
Messenger 1: oxen and donkey and field hands – gone.
Messenger 2: sheep and shepherds – gone.
Messenger 3: camels and servants – gone
Messenger 4: sons and daughters – gone.
These messengers follow one directly after the other, each arriving while the previous messenger is still talking. There is exactly zero time to process one tragedy before the next is reported. As a slow processor myself, that hurts extra.
Each messenger is clear that the devastation was total; each messenger was the only person to get out alive.
I hope God’s happy. Satan did his job and did it well. Come to think of it, though, we don’t really even know that it’s Satan’s doing. The inference is clear, but we don’t watch the calamities unfold. We only hear tell. And as it is told, the four calamities are written off to enemies and natural disasters in alternating fashion:
Sabeans got the oxen and donkeys.
Lightning got the sheep and shepherds.
Chaldeans got the camels and servants.
A great wind/tornado got the kids.
Satan is not even mentioned. Nor is God. At least not directly.
When I think about natural disasters such as lightning or tornados, I tend to classify them as thing out of our control. In insurance terms, they call those things “acts of God.”
An Act of God is an accident or event resulting from natural causes without human intervention, and one that could not have been prevented by reasonable foresight or care. For example, insurance companies often consider a flood, earthquake or storm to be an Act of God. Fire can also be an Act of God if it starts from lightning strikes.[1]
Job strikes me as the kind of guy who would have been all about some insurance. I wonder if Job thought of those things as acts of God, too.
[1] https://www.thehartford.com/aarp/homeowners-insurance/act-of-god