Job's Health is Taken Away
Chapter 2
The first three verses are identical to verses 6 to 8 in chapter one, but the LORD now added at the end, regarding Job "And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause."
The LORD declared that there was no reason for the huge catastrophes Job suffered in one day, that is to say, it was not punishment for any evil either Job or his children had done. Again this confirms that, although our actions can bring consequences upon us, good or bad, suffering is not necessarily punishment for our misdeeds. As in the case of Job, it can be a character test.
Job had passed this test with flying colours and Satan was proved to be mistaken. But Satan didn't give up and wanted to test Job to the limit of his endurance saying that all that a man has he will give for his life. This is the final test of the man of God, to prove whether he loves his own life in this world to the point of giving up his faith in God.
The Lord Jesus said: "He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (John 12:25) We must be so committed to living for Christ that we are willing to live in poverty or bad health, or even to die if doing so will glorify Christ. To live for Him rather than for ourselves enables us to live the eternal life.
Again the LORD knew the extent of the fidelity of his servant Job far better than Satan, and allowed the accuser to use the ultimate test: to take away Job's health to the extent he likes so long as Job is kept alive.
Satan was again making judgement on Job based on his experience of the endurance of most people. Everyone has weaknesses and when we get to the bare bones, most tend to cave in. But God has given us a promise: "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it" (1 Corinthians. 10:13). God will never allow us to be tempted beyond what we can stand and He is able to sustain us, even if our experience is tragic beyond words. God knows that our armour will stand up to it.
Many Christians have had to prove their faith in the past in a similar way to Job. Under the hands of their persecutors, of which the Inquisition by the Roman Catholic Institution for centuries is an outstanding example, believers have been robbed of their possessions and of their families and subjected to devilish tortures to try to force them to deny their faith. When finally murdered it has often been by cruel means such as burning alive at the stake, yet they stood firm.
Sometimes we might think to ourselves that some believer is being disciplined by the Lord (Hebrews 12:8) because of the bad things which have befallen him, yet this may not be true at all. It may be that God is testing him in a way He cannot test us, because He couldn't trust us with that much trouble.
Given a free hand with the outstandingly blameless and upright Job, Satan immediately put him to the supreme test: he struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
There is seemingly no human explanation for the troubles of Job. It was not a punishment for his sins, and the whole thing would be senseless without proper insight. That is the reason God gave the explanation to us at the beginning of the book so we will be able to understand.
God is capable of rescuing us from suffering, but he may also allow suffering to come for reasons we do not at present understand. It is Satan's strategy to get us to doubt God at exactly this moment. If we always knew why we were suffering, our faith would have no room to grow.
Faith in God does not guarantee personal prosperity, and lack of faith does not guarantee troubles in this life. There are today preachers of "prosperity Gospel" who ask people to believe in God simply to get rich. How wrong they are.
Many Christian people think that believing in God protects them from trouble, so when calamity comes, they question God's goodness and justice. But the message of Job is that we should not give up on God because he allows us to have bad experiences.
What was happening to Job was for a lofty and worthy purpose. There was a good and sufficient reason in the internal counsels of God. When all the facts were in and all the facets considered, God had a purpose in it. It was good for Job, even though dreadful at the time, and a lesson to Bible readers for the millennia which followed, even to our days.
A day came when Job realised that something good was coming out of his experience, but at first he did not understand at all. Not only was it for the good of Job and the readers of his experience, but it was for the glory of God. Satan had cast an aspersion on God's character by implying that He wasn't worthy to be loved, and had to pay Job in good health, family and riches to love and serve Him. All the sons of God must have shuddered when they heard this.
We may wonder why was Job's wife spared when the rest of his family was killed? One of the reasons may be that her very presence caused Job even more suffering through her chiding and sorrow over all they had lost.
Job's wife's suggestion to curse God and die is strange advice coming from a wife. Apparently she wanted to be a widow, but it might be that she was pitying the sad condition and suffering he now found himself in. We may wonder why her name isn't mentioned as the names of Job's friends were, but in all the book this was her only comment.
Job said she was speaking like a foolish woman. In his reply to her he maintained his integrity, saying that if we accept good from God, we must also accept adversity from Him.
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were not only Job's friends, they were also regarded as being very wise though, in the end, their wisdom was shown to be narrow-minded and incomplete like all human philosophy.
Upon learning of Job's difficulties, they came to mourn with him and to comfort him. Without knowing it, they brought on the most difficult part of the test when later they tried to find the cause of his troubles by using philosophical arguments, apparently the devil's last powerful effort to break down Job's resistance. They attacked his integrity through reasoning.
Often the best response to another person's suffering is silence. Job's friends realised that his pain was too deep to be healed with mere words, so they wept, each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head, sat down with him and said nothing for a full week.
According to Jewish tradition, people who come to comfort someone in mourning should not speak until the mourner speaks. Often, we feel we must say something spiritual and of deep significance to a hurting friend. Perhaps what he or she needs most is just our presence, showing that we care. Pat answers and trite quotations say much less than empathetic silence and loving companionship.
R David Jones
1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.
2 And the LORD said to Satan, "From where do you come?" So Satan answered the LORD and said, "From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it."
3 Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause."
4 So Satan answered the LORD and said, "Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.
5 "But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!"
6 And the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life."
7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.
8 And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
9 Then his wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!"
10 But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
11 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place - Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. For they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him, and to comfort him.
12 And when they raised their eyes from afar, and did not recognise him, they lifted their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven.
13 So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.