There has to be a good reason why a mother in Judah should give her son the mournful name of Jabez meaning ‘sorrowful’ or ‘grieved’. It is clear that the reason was not personal but spiritual, and it allowed a mother to pour into her boy’s heart spiritual truths. Truth he learned at his mother’s knee led him, in later years, to a course of action that set him apart from his brethren (see the expression ‘more honourable’, 4. 9; cf. 11. 21). This action has put his name into this book.
The tribe of Judah had a rich heritage; the first tribe to have possessed their land, Josh. 15, they had the first-born right of power to lead, 1 Chr. 5. 2, and since the very name of Judah means ‘praise’ they should have been a happy tribe. Yet, in the time of the judges weakness marked them: ‘And the Lord was with Judah; and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron’, Judg. 1. 19. Having lost the lush green valleys, Judah is pressed into the mountains. Power was gone, provisions short and praise absent – and a little boy was born! And a troubled mother gives him a name reflecting the conditions.
Jabez might have complained about the chariots or explained that he was not to blame. Rather he did something positive that distinguished him from his brethren. The chronicler tells us that ‘he called on the God of Israel’. The tense shows this was not an episode but a habit. He had learned, doubtless from the record of Jacob, Gen. 32. 26-30, that blessing demands clinging to God. Three requests sum up his desires.
(a) ‘Enlarge my coasts’ – he wanted the boundaries pushed back so that more provisions could be grown for his people;
(b) ‘That thine hand might be with me’ – once he pushed back the fences the enemy would march; he needed power; and
(c) ‘That thou wouldst keep me from evil’ – this was the evil of the day – the idolatry in the nation. He needed preservation.
Prayer not only changes things, it changes men. God granted him his request. It is not every saint that God can trust with answered prayer.
