Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
(placed). Runners, messengers, on foot, on horses, or on dromedaries (Esther 8:10-14; Job 9:25; Jer. 51:31).
Concise Bible Dictionary:
The dispatch of letters with speed was of early date. Job said, “Now my days are swifter than a post” (Job 9:25). When Hezekiah proclaimed a Passover for all Israel he sent letters of invitation by “runners” from city to city (2 Chron. 30:6,10). The posts sent with the decree from Shushan the palace went on horses, mules, camels, and young dromedaries, “being hastened and pressed on by the king’s commandment” (Esther 3:13,15; Esther 8:10,14). In the prophecy of God’s judgments on Babylon it is said that the news should be carried to the king by one post running to meet another (Jer. 51:31). By dividing large districts into small departments with a post-house in each, in which “runners” and animals were always kept ready, dispatches could quickly be dispersed in various directions.
From Manners and Customs of the Bible:
Job 9: 25. My days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good.
Swift runners were often employed in ancient times to convey important messages. Kings kept a number of such in their service as a part of the royal household. When Hezekiah sent invitations to the solemn passover which he designed holding at Jerusalem, it is said that “the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah” (2 Chron. 30:6). In the time of Jeremiah there seems to have been a regular postal service established, for he says, in prophesying the destruction of Babylon: “One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end” (Jer. 51:31). The Persians also made use of swift messengers. The order commanding the murder of all the Jews in the empire was sent by this means. See Esther 3:13,15. The order which neutralized the effect of this proclamation was sent by “posts that rode upon mules and camels” (Esther 8:14).
While there may have been no systematic communication of this sort in the time of Job, yet it is evident from the text that men fleet of foot were employed when occasion required. The patriarch compares the rapid flight of his days to a post; literally, a runner, a man hastening with news. This was the swiftest mode of communication with which he was familiar, and his days went swifter still.
See further the note on Matthew 5:41 (#642).
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