17 While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, "The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you."
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Chaldeans - The Septuagint translates this, αἱ ἱππεῖς hai hippeis), "the horsemen." Why they thus expressed it is unknown. It may be possible that the Chaldeans were supposed to be distinguished as horsemen, and were principally known as such in their predatory excursions. But it is impossible to account for all the changes made by the Septuagint in the text. Tho Syriac and the Chaldee render it correctly, "Chaldeans." The Chaldeans (Hebrew כשׂדים kaśdı̂ym) were the ancient inhabitants of Babylonia. According to Vitringa (Commentary in Isaiah. tom. i. p. 412, c. xiii. 19), Gesenius (Commentary zu Isaiah 23:13), and Rosenmailer (Bib. Geog. 1, 2, p. 36ff), the Chaldees or Casdim were a warlike people who orignally inhabited the Carduchian mountains, north of Assyria, and the northern part of Mesopotamia. According to Xenophon (Cyrop. iii. 2, 7) the Chaldees dwelt in the mountains adjacent to Armenia and they were found in the same region in the campaign of the younger Cyrus, and the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks. Xen. Anaba. iv. 3, 4; v. 5, 9; viii. 8, 14.
They were allied to the Hebrews, as appears from Genesis 22:22, where כשׂד keśed (whence "Kasdim") the ancestor of the people is mentioned as a son of Nabor, and was consequently the nephew of Abraham. And further, Abraham himself emigrated to Canaan from Ur of the Chaldees כשׂדים אוּר 'ûr kaśdı̂ym, "Ur of the Kasdim"), Genesis 11:28; and in Judith 5:6, the Hebrews themselves are said to be descended from the Chaldeans. The region around the river Chaboras, in the northern part of Mesopotamia, is called by Ezekiel Ezekiel 1:3 "the land of the Chaldeans;" Jeremiah Jeremiah 5:15 calls them "an ancient nation;" see the notes at Isaiah 23:13. The Chaldeans were a fierce and warlike people, and when they were subdued by the Assyrians, a portion of them appear to have been placed in Babylon to ward off the incursions of the neighboring Arabians. In time "they" gained the ascendency over their Assyrian masters, and grew into the mighty empire of Chaldea or Babylonia. A part of them, however, appear to have remained in their ancient country, and enjoyed under the Persians some degree of liberty. Gesenius supposes that the Kurds who have inhabited those regions, at least since the middle ages, are probably the descendants of that people. - A very vivid and graphic description of the Chaldeans is given by the prophet Habakkuk, which will serve to illustrate the passage before us, and show that they retained until his times the predatory and fierce character which they had in the days of Job; Job 1:6-11 :
For lo I raise up the Chaldeans,
A bitter and hasty nation,
Which marches far and wide in the earth.
To possess the dwellings which are not theirs.
They are terrible and dreadful,
Their judgments proceed only from themselves.
Swifter titan leopards are their horses,
And fiercer than the evening wolves.
Their horsemen prance proudly around;
And their horsemen shall come from afar and fly,
Like the eagle when he pounces on his prey.
They all shall come for violence,
In troops their glance is ever forward!
They gather captives like the sand!
And they scoff at kings,
And princes are a scorn unto them.
They deride every strong hold;
They cast up mounds of - earth and take it.
This warlike people ultimately obtained the ascendency in the Assyrian empire. About the year 597 B.C. Nabopolassar, a viceroy in Babylon, made himself independent of Assyria, contracted an alliance with Cyaxares, king of Media, and with his aid subdued Nineveh, and the whole of Assyria. From that time the Babylonian empire rose, and the history of the Chaldeans becomes the history of Babylon. - "Rob. Calmet." In the time of Job, however, they were a predatory race that seem to have wandered far for the sake of plunder. They came from the North, or the East, as the Sabeans came from the South.
Made out three bands - literally, "three heads." That is, they divided tbemselves, for the sake of plunder, into three parties. Perhaps the three thousand camels of Job Job 1:3 occupied three places remote from each other, and the object of the speaker is to say that the whole were taken.
And fell upon the camels - Margin, "And rushed." The word is different from that which in Job 1:15 is rendered "fell." The word used here פשׁט pâshaṭ means to spread out, to expand. It is spoken of hostile troops, 1-Chronicles 14:9, 1-Chronicles 14:13; of locusts which spread over a country, Nahum 3:15; and of an army or company of marauders. Judges 9:33, Judges 9:44; 1-Samuel 27:8. This is its sense here.
The Chaldeans made out three bands - The Chaldeans inhabited each side of the Euphrates near to Babylon, which was their capital. They were also mixed with the wandering Arabs, and lived like them on rapine. They were the descendants of Chesed, son of Nahor and brother of Huz, from whom they had their name Casdim, which we translate Chaldeans. They divided themselves into three bands, in order the more speedily and effectually to encompass, collect, and drive off the three thousand camels: probably they mounted the camels and rode off.
While he was yet speaking, there came also another,.... Another messenger from another part of Job's possessions, where his camels were, and this before the last messenger had told his story out:
and said, the Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away; these were the 3000 camels, as in Job 1:3 and perhaps they were in three separate companies and places, 1000 in each, and therefore the Chaldeans divided themselves into three bands; or "appointed three heads" (f), as it may be rendered; there were three bodies of them under so many leaders and commanders, and this was done, that they might the more easily take them; and they "diffused or spread themselves" (g), as the word signifies, upon or about the camels; they surrounded them on all sides, or otherwise, these being swift creatures, would have run away from them: these Chaldeans or Chasdim were the descendants of Chesed, a son of Nahor, who was brother to Abraham, Genesis 22:20, who settled in the east country, not far from Job: and this agrees with the character that Xenophon (h) gives of the Chaldeans, at least some of them, in later times; that they lived upon robbing and plundering others, having no knowledge of agriculture, but got their bread by force of arms; and such as these Satan could easily instigate to come and carry off Job's camels:
yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee; See Gill on Job 1:15.
(f) "posuerunt tria capita", Montanus, Bolducius, Schmidt; "duces", Pagninus, Vatablus. (g) "et diffuderunt se", Mercerus, Schmidt "effuderunt se", Cocceius. (h) Cyropaedia, l. 3. c. 11.
Chaldeans--not merely robbers as the Sabeans; but experienced in war, as is implied by "they set in array three bands" (Habakkuk 1:6-8). RAWLINSON distinguishes three periods: 1. When their seat of empire was in the south, towards the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. The Chaldean period, from 2300 B.C. to 1500 B.C. In this period was Chedorlaomer (Genesis 14:1), the Kudur of Hur or Ur of the Chaldees, in the Assyrian inscriptions, and the conqueror of Syria. 2. From 1500 to 625 B.C., the Assyrian period. 3. From 625 to 538 B.C. (when Cyrus the Persian took Babylon), the Babylonian period. "Chaldees" in Hebrew--Chasaim. They were akin, perhaps, to the Hebrews, as Abraham's sojourn in Ur, and the name "Chesed," a nephew of Abraham, imply. The three bands were probably in order to attack the three separate thousands of Job's camels (Job 1:3).
The Third Messenger:
17 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans ranged themselves in three bands, and rushed upon the camels, and carried them away, and slew the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
Without any authority, Ewald sees in this mention of the Chaldeans an indication of the composition of the book in the seventh century b.c., when the Chaldeans under Nabopolassar began to inherit the Assyrian power. Following Ewald, Renan observes that the Chaldeans first appear as such marauders about the time of Uzziah. But in Genesis we find mention of early Semitic Chaldeans among the mountain ranges lying to the north of Assyria and Mesopotamia; and later, Nahor Chaldeans of Mesopotamia, whose existence is traced back to the patriarchal times (vid., Genesis, p. 422),
(Note: This reference is to Delitzsch's Commentar ber die Genesis, 1860, a separate work from the Keil and Delitzsch series. - Tr.)
and who were powerful enough at any time to make a raid into Idumaea. To make an attack divided into several ראשׁים, heads, multitudes, bands (two - Genesis. Job 14:15; three - Judges 7:16, 1-Samuel 11:11; or four - Judg. Job 9:34), is an ancient military stratagem; and פּשׁט, e.g., Judges 9:33, is the proper word for attacks of such bands, either for plunder or revenge. In לפי־חרב, at the edge of the sword, l'epe, ל is like the usual acc. of manner.
Chaldeans - Who also lived upon spoil, as Xenephon and others observe.
*More commentary available at chapter level.