Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 42:13

He had also seven sons and three daughters.

13 15. The former number of Job’s children is restored to him. The name Jemima probably means dove, comp. Son 6:9; Son 5:2; Kezia is cassia, the aromatic spice, Psa 45:8, Son 1:3; and Kerenhappch means horn (or box) of eye-paint, puch being the paint or powder used by Oriental women to add lustre to the eye. The Sept. curiously renders horn of Amalthea, cornu copi, horn of plenty. A French commentator considers it important to remark that “les trois noms sont destins relever les grces de ces filles, et pas le moins du monde leur coquetterie” (Reuss).

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

He had also seven sons and three daughters – The same number which he had before his trials. Nothing is said of his wife, or whether these children were, or were not, by a second marriage. The last mention that is made of his wife is in Job 19:17, where he says that his breath was strange to his wife, though he entreated her for the childrens sake of his own body. The character of this woman does not appear to have been such as to have deserved further notice than the fact, that she contributed greatly to increase the calamities of her husband. It falls in with the design of the book to notice her only in this respect, and having done this, the sacred writer makes no further reference to her. The strong presumption is, that the second family of children was by a second marriage. See Prof. Lee on Job, p. 26. It would not, however, have fallen in with the usual manner in which a wife is mentioned in the Scriptures, to represent her removal as in any circumstances a felicitous event, and, as it could have been represented in no other light, if it had actually occurred, it is delicately passed over in silence. Even under all these circumstanccs – with a former wife who was impious and unfeeling; who served only to aggravate the woes of her holy and much afflicted husband; who saw him pass through his trials without sympathy and compassion – a second marriage is not mentioned as a desirable event, nor is it referred to as one of the grounds on which Job could felicitate himself on his return to prosperity. The children are mentioned; the whole reference to the second marriage relation, if it occurred, is delicately passed over. Under no circumstances would the sacred penman mention it as an event laying the ground for felicitation.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 13. Seven sons and three daughters.] This was the same number as before; and so the Vulgate, Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic read: but the Chaldee doubles the sons, “And he had fourteen sons, and three daughters.”

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

13. The same number as before,Job 1:2; perhaps by a secondwife; in Job 19:17 his wife islast mentioned.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

He had also seven sons, and three daughters. The same number of children, and of the same sort he had before, Job 1:2; and according to Nachman the very same he had before, which the additional letter in the word “seven” is with him the notification of; so that the doubting of what he had before, Job 42:10; respects only his substance, and particularly his cattle; though the Targum says he had fourteen sons, and so Jarchi t; others think these may be said to be double to Job in their good qualities, external and internal, in their dispositions, virtues, and graces; and others, inasmuch as his former children were not lost, but lived with God, and would live for ever, they might now be said to be double; and so they consider this as a proof of the immortality of the soul, and of the resurrection of the body; but these senses are not to be trusted to; whether these children were by a former wife or another is uncertain.

t Vid. Balmes. Gram. Strat. 26.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

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 (instead of ), with paragogic ana , which otherwise is a fem. suff. (Ges. 91, rem. 2), here, however, standing in a prominent position, is an embellishment somewhat violently brought over from the style of the primeval histories (Gen 21:29; Rth 1:19): a septiad of sons. The names of the sons are passed over in silence, but those of the daughters are designedly given.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

13. He had also seven sons and three daughters The number of his children was not doubled; for the dead were with God. The omission is significant, and can only be accounted for by the belief in a reunion after death. (See p. 72, 73.) “God did not double his children to Job, in order that he might not despair of seeing again the children he had lost; and in order that he might know that, though they were taken from him, they were still alive; and that we also might know that Job, who had buried ten children, and was himself buried by ten others, passed at death, as it were, from one home to another, and all of them will stand with him together at the great day.” Chrysostom.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments