Bible Strands
Job 1:3
and he owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large number of servants. Job was the greatest man of all the people of the East.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator describes Job’s household and wealth immediately after listing his seven sons and three daughters. This statement establishes Job’s social standing before the narrative introduces his trials.
The words — מִקְנֵהוּ (Miknehhu) translates literally as “his livestock,” and שִׁבְעַת אַלְפֵי־צֹאן (shiv'at alfei-tzon) means “seven thousand sheep.”
The thread — The text contrasts Job’s initial holdings with his restored possessions in Job 42:12, while Judges 6:3 uses “people of the east” to describe invading raiders rather than a settled population.
Why it lands — The passage records material abundance and regional prominence without moral commentary, requiring the reader to track how wealth functions within the narrative’s subsequent test.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.
Cross-references
- Job 29:25 I chose their course and presided as chief. So I dwelt as a king among his troops, as a comforter of the mourners.
- Job 42:12 So the LORD blessed Job’s latter days more than his first. He owned 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.
- Judges 6:3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites, and other people of the east would come up and invade them,
- Numbers 23:7 And Balaam lifted up an oracle, saying: “Balak brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the mountains of the east. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘put a curse on Jacob for me; come and denounce Israel!’
- 1 Kings 4:30 Solomon’s wisdom was greater than that of all the men of the East, greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.
- Proverbs 10:22 The blessing of the LORD enriches, and He adds no sorrow to it.
- Genesis 12:16 He treated Abram well on her account, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels.
- Genesis 12:5 And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions and people they had acquired in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,
- Job 29:9 The princes refrained from speaking and covered their mouths with their hands.
- Genesis 13:6 But the land was unable to support both of them while they stayed together, for they had so many possessions that they were unable to coexist.