Verses 13, 14, 15. — 'Now on a certain day, when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the house of their firstborn brother, a messenger came to Job and said: The oxen were plowing, and the she-asses feeding beside them, and the Sabeans rushed in and carried off everything, and struck the servants with the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.' 22. The devil chooses his times for tempting. — It is to be noted what times are suited to temptations. For the devil chose a time for tempting precisely when he found blessed Job's children at a banquet. For the enemy considers not only what he may do, but also when he may do it. For although he had received power, yet he sought out a time fit for overthrowing;
so that it might indeed be betrayed to us, by God's ordering, that the gladness of fullness is a forerunner of tribulation. But it is to be observed how craftily the very losses that were inflicted are announced. For it is not said, 'The oxen were carried off by the Sabeans,' but 'those that were carried off were plowing oxen'; so that, by the remembered fruit of their labor, the cause of grief might increase. Hence also among the Greeks it is reported that not merely she-asses, but pregnant she-asses, were seized; so that while the least of animals would strike the hearer's mind less by their quality, they might wound it more by their fecundity. And because adverse things strike the mind the more, the more, being many, they are also announced suddenly, the measure of groanings was increased even by the intervals of the messengers. For there follows: