Job 1:12

God permits the Adversary to try Job in order to test his integrity and manifest his piety. Observe that Job's person is exempt from attack in this first trial. In view of the Satan's eagerness to prove his judgment of Job correct, God knows that this limitation of his power is necessary.

'Between Job 1:12 and Job 1:13 there is an interval, an ominous stillness like that which precedes the storm. The poet has drawn aside the curtain to us, and we know what is impending. Job knows nothing' (Davidson).

13-22. The first trial of Job's integrity arising from the loss of his property and children. The way in which the messengers are introduced, and the similarity of their message, shows that we are not reading actual history, but a drama. The poet represents the catastrophe as falling on the day when the feast was at the eldest brother's house, because on the morning of that day the sacrifices had been offered for Job's children after the feast in the youngest brother's house on the day before. The death of the children cannot therefore be explained as due to their sin, for this had just been atoned for. Each catastrophe is worse than the previous one.