Albert Barnes Commentary Job 1:17

"While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have taken them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee." — Job 1:17 (ASV)

The Chaldeans - The Septuagint translates this as αἱ ἱππεῖς (hai hippēis), "the horsemen." Why they expressed it in this way 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. However, it is impossible to account for all the changes made by the Septuagint in the text. The Syriac and the Chaldee render it correctly, "Chaldeans."

The Chaldeans (Hebrew כשׂדים, kaśdîm) were the ancient inhabitants of Babylonia. According to Vitringa (Commentary on Isaiah, vol. 1, p. 412, chapter 13:19), Gesenius , and Rosenmüller (Biblical Geography, vol. 1, 2, p. 36 and following), the Chaldeans or Kasdim were a warlike people who originally inhabited the Carduchian mountains, north of Assyria, and the northern part of Mesopotamia.

According to Xenophon (Cyropædia iii.2.7), the Chaldeans 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.

Xenophon, Anabasis iv.3.4; v.5.9; viii.8.14.

They were allied to the Hebrews, as appears from Genesis 22:22, where כשׂד (Keśed), from which "Kasdim" is derived, the ancestor of the people, is mentioned as a son of Nahor and was consequently the nephew of Abraham. Furthermore, Abraham himself emigrated to Canaan from Ur of the Chaldees (אור כשׂדים, ʾûr Kaśdîm), "Ur of the Kasdim" (Genesis 11:28).

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 on Isaiah 23:13).

The Chaldeans were a fierce and warlike people. When they were subdued by the Assyrians, a portion of them appear to have been stationed in Babylon to ward off the incursions of the neighboring Arabians. In time, they gained ascendancy over their Assyrian masters and grew into the mighty empire of Chaldea or Babylonia. A part of them, however, seem to have remained in their ancient country and enjoyed some degree of liberty under the Persians. 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 time the predatory and fierce character 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 than 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 stronghold;
They cast up mounds of earth and take it.

This warlike people ultimately obtained ascendancy 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 became the history of Babylon. (Rob. Calmet)

In the time of Job, however, they were a predatory race that seems to have wandered far for the sake of plunder. They came from the North or the East, just as the Sabeans came from the South.

Made out three bands - Literally, "three heads." That is, they divided themselves, 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 all of them 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 (pāshaṭ), 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.