Why Job Was Not a Materialist

I'm double-dipping again. I'm tired, and I'd like to try to go to bed at a semi-reasonable hour tonight, so I'm going to copy an assignment I wrote for my Bible as Literature class, exploring evidence of why Job was not a materialistic man.

Before (and after) his testing, Job was a wealthy man. “He [had] owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, and 500 female donkeys. He also had many servants. He was, in fact, the richest person in that entire area” (Job 1:3).

The origin of this wealth is not clearly stated in the text, but I think it’s safe to assume that he must have put at least some effort into amassing or at least maintaining it. Job, in all likelihood, put in at least some work for his wealth.

However, it is clear by the several chapters that followed that he had not set his heart on his wealth. Early on in his testing, Job was informed that he had lost all his livestock to the Chaldeans, the Sabeans, and the “fire of God [falling] from heaven” (Job 1:15-17). Yet, despite this tremendous financial loss, Job still praised God, saying “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The LORD gave me what I had, and the LORD has taken it away. Praise the name of the LORD!” (Job 1:21). It is true that Job “tore his robe in grief” at the deluge of bad news he received (Job 1:20), but that grief could have been caused by the loss of his children rather than the loss of his fortune (Job 1:19).

I think that how Job truly exemplified his anti-materialism was the fact that, in all the chapters that followed, in all the chapters in which he and his friends discussed his sorry state, I don’t recall him even once complaining about the loss of his belongings. He lamented his fate in general terms, but I don’t think he ever lamented losing his livestock. Instead, Job kept his mind set on heaven and paid very little attention his material losses. A materialistic man would have complained had he lost all his material wealth. By not doing so, Job made it clear that his true wealth wasn’t stored on Earth, but in Heaven.