Job 42:13

Seven sons and three daughters - This was the same number as before; and so the Vulgate, Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic read: but the Chaldee doubles the sons, "And he had fourteen sons, and three daughters."

He had also seven sons and three daughters - The same number which he had before his trials. Nothing is said of his wife, or whether these children were, or were not, by a second marriage. The last mention that is made of his wife is in Job 19:17, where he says that "his breath was strange to his wife, though he entreated her for the children's sake of his own body." The character of this woman does not appear to have been such as to have deserved further notice than the fact, that she contributed greatly to increase the calamities of her husband. It falls in with the design of the book to notice her only in this respect, and having done this, the sacred writer makes no further reference to her. The strong presumption is, that the second family of children was by a second marriage. See Prof. Lee on Job, p. 26. It would not, however, have fallen in with the usual manner in which "a wife" is mentioned in the Scriptures, to represent her removal as "in any circumstances" a felicitous event, and, as it could have been represented in no other light, if it had actually occurred, it is delicately passed over in silence. Even under all these circumstanccs - with a former wife who was impious and unfeeling; who served only to aggravate the woes of her holy and much afflicted husband; who saw him pass through his trials without sympathy and compassion - a second marriage is not mentioned as a desirable event, nor is it referred to as one of the grounds on which Job could felicitate himself on his return to prosperity. The children are mentioned; the whole reference to the second marriage relation, if it occurred, is delicately passed over. Under no circumstances would the sacred penman mention it as an event laying the ground for felicitation.