Albert Barnes Commentary Job 1:10

"Hast not thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath, on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land." — Job 1:10 (ASV)

Have you not made a hedge around him? - Dr. Good remarks that to give the original word here its full force, it should be derived from the science of engineering, and be translated, "Have you not raised a 'palisade' around him?" The Hebrew word used here (שׂוּך śûk) properly means "to hedge"; to hedge in or about; and therefore, to protect, as one is defended whose house or farm is hedged in either with a fence of thorns or with an enclosure of stakes or palisades.

The word śûk in its various forms is used to denote, as a noun, pricks in the eyes (Numbers 33:55)—that is, that which would be like thorns; barbed irons (Job 41:7)—that is, the barbed iron used as a spear to take fish; and a hedge, and thorn hedge (Micah 7:4; Proverbs 15:19; Isaiah 5:5). The idea here is that of making an enclosure around Job and his possessions to guard them from danger.

The Septuagint translates it περιέφραξας periephracas—"to make a defense around," to "circumvallate" or enclose, as a camp is in war. In the Syriac and Arabic it is translated, "Have you not protected him with your hand?" The Chaldee, "Have you protected him with your word?" The Septuagint translates the whole passage, "Have you not encircled the things which are outside him (τὰ ἔξω αὐτοῦ ta exō autou)—that is, the things abroad which belong to him—and the things within his house." The sense of the whole passage is that he was eminently under the divine protection, and that God had kept Job himself, his family, and property from plunderers, and that therefore he served and feared Him.

You have blessed the work of his hands - You have greatly prospered him.

And his substance is increased in the land - His property (Job 1:3). Margin, "cattle." The word "increased" here by no means expresses the force of the original. The word פרץ pârats properly means to break, to rend, then to break or burst forth as waters do that have been pent up (2 Samuel 5:20); compare Proverbs 3:10: "So shall your barns be filled with plenty, and your presses 'shall burst out' פרץ pârats with new wine." That is, your wine-vats shall be so full that they shall overflow, or "burst" the barriers, and the wine shall flow out in abundance.

The Arabians, according to Schultens, still use this word to denote the mouth or 'embouchure'—the most rapid part of a stream. So Golius, in proof of this, quotes from the Arabic writer Gjanhari, a couplet where the word is used to denote the mouth of the Euphrates:

"His rushing wealth overflowed him with its heaps;
So at its mouth the mad Euphrates sweeps."

According to Schultens, the word denotes a place where a river bursts forth and makes a new way by rending the hills and rocks asunder. Similarly, the flocks and herds of Job had burst, as it were, every barrier, and had spread like an inundation over the land; compare (Genesis 30:43); (2 Chronicles 31:5); (Exodus 1:7); (Job 16:14).