12 And Jehovah blessed Job's end more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand she-asses.
The numbers of the stock of cattle, Job 1:3,[1] now appear doubled, but it is different with the children.
Verse 13
Job 42:13 13 And he had seven sons and three daughters.
Therefore, instead of the seven sons and three daughters which he had, he receives just the same again, which is also so far a doubling, as deceased children also, according to the Old Testament view, are not absolutely lost, 2Sa 12:23. The author of this book, in everything to the most minute thing consistent, here gives us to understand that with men who die and depart from us the relation is different from that with things which we have lost. The pausal שׁבענה (instead of שׁבעה), with paragogic âna, which otherwise is a fem. suff. (Ges. §91, rem. 2), here, however, standing in a
- ↑ Job, like all the wealthier husbandmen in the present day, kept she-asses, although they are three times dearer than the male, because they are useful for their foals; it is not for the sake of their milk, for the Semites do not milk asses and horses. Moreover, the foals are also only a collateral gain, which the poor husbandman, who is only able to buy a he-ass, must forego. What renders this animal indispensable in husbandry is, that it is the common and (since camels are extremely rare among the husbandmen) almost exclusive means of transport. How would the husbandman, e.g., be able to carry his seed for sowing to a field perhaps six or eight miles distant? Not on the plough, as our farmers do, for the plough is transported on the back of the oxen in Syria. How would he be able to get the corn that was to be ground (tachne) to the mill, perhaps a day's journey distant; how carry wood and grass, how get the manure upon the field in districts that require to be manured, if he had not an ass? The camels, on the other hand, serve for harvesting (ragâd), and the transport of grain (ghalle), chopped straw (tibn), fuel (hatab), and the like, to the large inland towns, and to the seaports. Those village communities that do not possess camels for this purpose, hire them of the Arabs (nomads). - Wetzst.
