“And among the devils were those who dived for him and performed other work besides that; and We kept watch over them. (82) And Job, when he called upon his Lord, saying, ‘Indeed, adversity has touched me, and You are the Most Merciful of those who show mercy.’ (83)”

Allah, exalted is He, says: “And among the devils”—that is, We subjected some of the devils to him—“were those who dived for him,” meaning that they went beneath the water and brought up jewels for him from the depths of the sea; “and performed other work besides that,” that is, besides diving. This is what Allah, exalted is He, mentions: “They made for him whatever he wished of lofty chambers and statues” (Saba: 13). “And We kept watch over them,” so that they would not depart from his command.

Al-Zajjaj said: This means that We protected them from spoiling what they had made. It is related in the account that whenever Solomon sent a devil along with a human being to carry out some work for him, he would say to him, “If it finishes its work before nightfall, keep it occupied with another task, lest it spoil what it has done.” It was the habit of the devils that, when they had completed a task and were not occupied with another, they would demolish and corrupt what they had made.

Allah, exalted is He, says: “And Job, when he called upon his Lord,” that is, when he supplicated to his Lord. Wahb ibn Munabbih said: Job was a man of Rum. He was Job, son of Amwas, son of Razikh, son of Rum, son of Esau, son of Isaac, son of Abraham. His mother was among the descendants of Lot, son of Haran. Allah had chosen him, made him a prophet, and granted him abundant worldly provision.

He possessed the whole of al-Bathaniyyah in the land of Syria, its plains and mountains alike. There he possessed every kind of wealth—cattle, camels, sheep, horses, and donkeys—in an amount and abundance unsurpassed by any man. He had five hundred estates, attended by five hundred slaves. Each slave had a wife, children, and property. The equipment of each estate was carried by a she-ass, and every she-ass had offspring numbering two, three, four, five, or more.

Above all this, Allah, exalted is He, had granted him a household and children, both male and female. He was righteous, God-fearing, and compassionate toward the needy: he fed the poor, cared for widows and orphans, honored guests, and assisted wayfarers. He was grateful for Allah’s blessings and fulfilled Allah’s due. He had guarded himself against Allah’s enemy, Iblis, so that Iblis could not bring him to the arrogance, heedlessness, and distraction from Allah’s command to which people of wealth are prone because of their worldly possessions. Three men were with him who had believed