Job’s wealth was spectacular. He had an enormous piece of land that he used for both agriculture and sheep farming. His three thousand camels can be compared to three thousand small trucks in our time. He would use them to transport his goods across a wide network of trade routes. His large number of servants had five hundred donkeys to take them around and he had five hundred teams of oxen (the equivalent of five hundred tractors).
No wonder that Job was the greatest man among all the people of the East.
His status was such that when I went to the gate of the city and took my seat in the public square, the young men saw me and stepped aside and the old men rose to their feet; the chief men refrained from speaking and covered their mouths with their hands; the voices of the nobles were hushed, and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths
(Job 29:7–10). Now we can appreciate the depth of the losses that Job would suffer.
3 He possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.