“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.”
The wind that brought down the house is explicitly associated with the desert, suggesting either a natural phenomenon (a sirocco or khamsin) or, in theological terms, a divinely sent catastrophe. The great wind strikes all four corners of the house, suggesting totality and encompassing devastation. That this final blow combines both the suddenness of natural disaster and the completeness of total loss creates the climactic reversal of Job's fortune.
Church Fathers on Job 1:19
While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house: 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. He who is not laid low by one wound is in consequence stricken twice and thrice, that at one time or another he may be struck to the…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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