Job 1:10, commentary and pictures

God placed a protective hedge around Job and around his house and all he had on every side, blessing the work of his hands and increasing his substance in the land. That hedge is kept by guardian angels who shield His followers from the destroyer, and it cannot be broken through, for Satan is real and active yet limited and restrained by One mightier than he. In the heavenly court Satan scornfully charged that Job served God only for gain because of that hedge and blessing, and demanded leave to strike all he possessed and then his flesh, so God placed all Job had and then Job himself in Satan's hand with the single limit to spare his life. When permitted, Satan stripped Job of flocks and herds, servants, houses and children and covered his body with suffering, yet Job held fast his integrity and loyalty instead of cursing God, proving that affliction is not proof of a sinful life. The same hedge still surrounds God's commandment-keeping people and is claimed for households today when parents plead morning and evening for holy angels to guard their children from Satan's cruel power.

Hedge and Heavenly Challenge

The question itself admits the fact: God had made a hedge about Job, and about his house, and about all that he had on every side, blessing the work of his hands so that his substance was increased in the land. That hedge was not an abstraction but a guard carried out through guardian angels appointed to every follower of Christ, heavenly watchers who shield God's people from the power of the wicked one and the destroyer. The same protection that secured Job, his household, and his possessions shows that God can permit a trial while setting its limits, and that the trial within those limits can purify the tested one and better fit him for service and God's work. Even when God allowed Satan to afflict Job, stripping him of possessions and taking his children, Job remained loyal, and his suffering was no proof that he had lived sinfully.

The guard God stations about His people and about their houses and all they have on every side cannot be broken through by the wicked one. Those who follow Christ are ever safe under His watchcare, finding shelter and deliverance in the superior power of the Redeemer over the power and malice of Satan and his host, with angels that excel in strength sent from heaven to protect them. That unceasing guardianship is necessary because in human strength there is no defense against the deceptive power, unsleeping malice, and conflict with the prince of darkness, against mighty, numerous, determined, untiring agencies of evil whose malignity and power must not be ignored. If permitted, evil angels constantly seeking access would distract minds, disorder and torment bodies, and destroy possessions and lives, delighting only in misery and destruction, and fearful is the condition of those who resist the divine claims and yield to temptation until given up to the control of evil spirits.

Satan is a real, active, personal agent, the originator of evil and the enemy of God and man, yet he cannot touch the righteous at will. His power is limited, restrained, and controlled by One mightier than he, who sets its bounds and protective limits around His servants and their possessions. Hence Satan scornfully charged that Job fears God for nought but for gain, that the hedge and blessing are the only reason for his loyalty. He demanded that God strike all Job possesses and then his bone and his flesh to prove Job would curse God to His face, and God answered by placing all Job had in Satan's power and then placing Job himself in Satan's hand with the single limit to spare his life.

The saying belongs to the heavenly-court scene in which Satan was permitted to show his indignation against God's servant. There he challenged Job's devotion before God and the heavenly beings, accusing God's devoted servants, seeking missteps to use as accusations before the angels, and working on earth through those who profess the truth to accuse them. It stands in the record of Job 1:8-12, continued in Job 2:5-7, behind Job's anguish when, seemingly forsaken of heaven and earth, he still held fast his faith in God and his consciousness of integrity.

Affliction and Proven Integrity

God permitted Satan to afflict Job, and Satan stripped him of all he possessed, sweeping away flocks and herds, servants, houses and children, breaking his family ties and taking his children from him. For a time he covered his body with loathsome sores that caused great suffering, and Job was so afflicted in body that he was abhorred by his relatives and friends. He was deprived of his worldly possessions as one of God's appointed witnesses exposed to reproach and persecution for the truth's sake.

When he was suffered to afflict Job, Satan used his studied knowledge of nature and his power over the elements, even the secrets of the laboratories of nature, to control them to garner his harvest of unprepared souls, but only as far as God allowed. Then Job's losses came with great speed, one trouble succeeding another as in a moment. Satan has control of all whom God does not especially guard; he will favor and prosper some to further his own designs and will bring trouble upon others to lead men to believe that it is God who is afflicting them. When people show contempt for the law and rebel against it and teach and force others to do the same, God withdraws His blessings from the earth and removes His protecting care from them.

In human strength there is no defense against evil angels constantly seeking access, who if permitted would distract minds, disorder and torment bodies, and destroy possessions and lives, delighting only in misery and destruction. Fearful is the condition of those who resist the divine claims and yield to temptation until given up to the control of evil spirits. Job's suffering was not the result of a perverted life or proof that he had lived sinfully. His friends wrongly insisted his afflictions came from his own sinful course, tried to prove him guilty before God and deserving of punishment, put him through a grievous test, and gave a false picture of God. That error God reproved, and the Jews later repeated it by regarding affliction as punishment from God.

When God let the enemy loose upon Job and proved and tested him, He found steadfast integrity and loyalty rather than murmuring and unbelief. Job denied the false charge, called his comforters miserable comforters, maintained his integrity, and did not turn from loyalty. God rewarded His faithful servant. His steadfastness bears witness to the faithfulness of God's promises, His abiding presence and sustaining grace, and the power of faith to withstand the powers of the world and to rest in God in the darkest hour. God can permit a trial while limiting Satan's power, and the trial within those limits can purify the tested person and better prepare and fit him for service and God's work.

Protection Claimed Today

As God made a hedge about Job, parents are to make a hedge about their children through earnest prayer and persevering, living faith, praying in faith for God to remain and abide with them and for holy angels to guard them and their children and the family from Satan's cruel power.
That hedge is made morning and evening, with worldly labor and self-interest secondary and the hour of prayer respected, when the father, or in his absence the mother, humbly and tenderly pleads for keeping through the temptations and dangers of the day.
By such sincere, earnest prayer parents bind their children upon the altar, entrust them to the Lord and entreat His care for them, joining prayer with patient, kind, untiring instruction in how to live to please God.
Children thus dedicated to God are guarded by ministering angels, since they cannot alone cut off and roll back the weight of evil pressing upon them, and making this hedge is the daily duty of Christian parents.

God makes such a hedge of protection about His living witnesses when Satan seeks to destroy them, as with the men raised up to cry against the sins of the Papal church and carry forward the Reformation.
The hedge does not mean none die, for some are permitted for the glory of His name to seal with their blood the testimony they have borne.
Others like Luther and Melanchthon are kept alive because they can best glorify God by living, crying aloud against and exposing the sins of popes, priests and kings, so that kings trembled before them and through them rays of light scattered the darkness and many received the light.
Satan can have power over the body but cannot make believers yield their faith and hope, so that when one witness is slain God raises up two or more to fill his place.

God makes a hedge of holy angels about His commandment-keeping people in the final conflict, and Satan sees that guarding and infers their sins have been pardoned, though he does not know their cases have been decided in the sanctuary above.
Numbering the world as his subjects, yet seeing this little company resist his supremacy, he accuses them before God from his accurate knowledge of the sins he tempted them to commit, presenting them in exaggerated light as proof they are as deserving as himself of exclusion from God's favor.
He claims them as his prey, declares that the Lord cannot in justice forgive their sins and yet destroy him and his angels, and demands them into his hands to destroy, that if he could blot them from the earth his triumph would be complete.
The Lord permits him to try them to the uttermost, so their confidence, faith and firmness are severely tested as they review the past, see little good and feel weakness and unworthiness, while Satan endeavors to terrify them that their cases are hopeless and their defilement will never be washed away, hoping to destroy their faith so they yield to temptation and turn from allegiance to God.

God surrounds His people with a wall of protection so they are not exposed to the temptations around them, and they must not leave that protection by standing on Satan's ground.
God makes a hedge about faithful souls with angels to protect them from being deceived and led away by Satan's lying wonders, and those who do their part to be ready for the coming conflict by examining well the foundation of their hope and being able to give a reason for it from the Scriptures will have God's all-powerful arm to protect them when spreading delusion must be met face to face.
He would sooner send every angel out of glory to make that hedge than have them ensnared and overcome.
Building a hedge about oneself means diligently exerting an influence opposite to a former wrong course, so that Satan's influence cannot enter.