Albert Barnes Commentary Job 3:25

"For the thing which I fear cometh upon me, And that which I am afraid of cometh unto me." — Job 3:25 (ASV)

For the thing which I greatly feared - The margin note says, as in the Hebrew, “I feared a fear, and it came upon me.” This verse, with the following, has received a considerable variety of interpretation. Many have understood it as referring to his whole course of life. They suppose Job meant to say that he was always anxious about some great calamity, like the one that had now come upon him. They also believe that during his highest prosperity, he had lived in continual alarm that his property would be taken away and that he would be reduced to poverty and suffering. This is the opinion of Drusius and Codurcus.

In reply to this, Schultens has remarked that such a supposition is contrary to all probability. He argued that there was no reason to be anxious that such calamities as Job now suffered would come upon him, as they were so unusual they could not have been anticipated. Therefore, Schultens concluded, the alarm spoken of here could not refer to the general tenor of his life.

That life seems to have been happy and calm, and perhaps, if anything, too tranquil and secure. Most interpreters suppose that it refers to the state in which he was during his trial, and that it is designed to describe the rapid succession of his sorrows. Such is the interpretation of Rosenmuller, Schultens, Doctors Good, Noyes, Gill, and others. According to this, it means that his calamities came on him in quick succession. He had no time after one calamity to become composed before another came. When he heard of one misfortune, he naturally dreaded another, and they came on with overwhelming rapidity.

If this is the correct interpretation, it means that the source of his lamentation is not merely the greatness of his losses and his trials considered in the aggregate, but the extraordinary rapidity with which they succeeded each other, thus making them much more difficult to bear; see Job 1: he was anxious about calamity, and it came suddenly.

When one part of his property was taken, he had deep anxieties about the rest. When all his property was seized or destroyed, he was alarmed about his children. When the report came that they were dead, he feared some other affliction still.

This sentiment aligns with human nature: when we are struck by severe calamity in one form, we naturally dread it in another. The mind becomes exquisitely sensitive. Our affections cluster around the objects of attachment that remain, and they become dearer to us. When one child is taken away, our affections cling more closely to the one who survives. Any little illness alarms us, and the value of a remaining object of affection increases more and more—like the Sibyl’s leaves—as another is removed.

It is an instinct of our nature, too, to anticipate calamity in quick succession when one misfortune comes. “Misfortunes seldom come alone;” and when we suffer the loss of one endeared object, we instinctively feel that there may be a succession of blows that will remove all our comforts from us. Such seems to have been the fear of Job.