Hedge
You stated in your e-mail:
A friend of mine is very forceful in a negative way when people pray for a "holy hedge" to surround people for protection. This refers to Job 1;10.
Now; was satan making a joke out of God's protection when he referred to God's hedge around Job, his family and property? Hedge, the noun is a twelfth century old English word possibly hagh or hawthorn changing spellings several times but still meaning hedge. If you have ever run into a hawthorne shrub you would understand the meaning of hedge referred to by the devil.
But, the father of lies always speaks out of a twisted place so what is it he is referring to in the original that this was written; a wall or what?
It appears to me that Satan is saying that God (Jesus) put this hedge around Job and all he has and not God initiating the conversation . Job 1:9-11 So Satan answered the LORD and said, "Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You (God) not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!"
Further the “hedge” appears to be a spiritual not a physical hedge because the verse says the hedge goes around ALL he has. This is unlikely to be a physical hedge. And this is no joke, God removed the hedge to prove to Satan that His people (like Job) will stay with Him, as Job said through the high’s and low’s of life.
I personally have had times when Jesus has put a hedge around me for various reasons: as a young child, during a terrible divorce, when I had financial problems and others.
Hedges were generally made of cut thorn branches or formed from thorny plants. A "fence" normally comprised a loose stone wall, such as surrounded fields and vineyards. It was customary to surround vineyards with a wall of loose stones or mud, often crowned with thorns to keep off wild beasts.
Note, (from Matthew Henry's Commentary), God's peculiar people are taken under his special protection, they and all that belong to them; divine grace makes a hedge about their spiritual life, and divine providence about their natural life, so they are safe and easy. He had prospered him, not in idleness or injustice (the devil could not accuse him of them), but in the way of honest diligence.
A little further information from the Bible. Prov 15:19 “The way of the lazy man is like a hedge of thorns, But the way of the upright is a highway.”
Commentary (from Bible Knowledge Commentary) for Prov 15:19
Thorns in the path depict problems that keep a person from getting what he wants; his life has obstructions. The upright, however, are diligent and therefore have fewer problems; their lives are more like a smooth highway.
Note that Jesus spoke about a hedge. Matt 21:33 "Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. See construction of hedges above.
So it is that a hedge is a gift from Jesus to protect us from various events or problems in or lives, but, only as much as is the will of God.
