Job 2

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 2 present himself before the LORD. And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. 3 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job? for there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil: and he still holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against 4 him, to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give 5 for his life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will 6 renounce thee to thy face. And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; 7 only spare his life. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot 8 unto his crown. And he took him a pots-

3. Movedst Me. A strong expression, equivalent to “didst tempt or instigate Me;” it belongs to anthropomorphical representations of God common in Holy Writ, and is most impressive as indicating a depth and extent of sympathy between man and the divine nature of which philosophy can give no account. Satan certainly did move God to act, since his calumny was the immediate occasion of Job’s calamity, but the result was the complete overthrow of his own position, and the establishment of the principles which he assailed. Cook. —Satan is condemned for his allegations against Job—thou movedst Me against him, as an accuser, to destroy him without cause. Well is it for us that neither men nor devils are to be our judges, for perhaps they would destroy us, right or wrong; but our judgment proceeds from the Lord, whose judgment never errs, or is biased. Job is commended for his constancy, notwithstanding the attacks made upon him: “Still he holds fast his integrity, as his weapon, and thou canst not disarm him; as his treasure, and thou canst not rob him of that; nay, thine endeavors to do it make him hold it the faster; instead of losing ground by the temptation, he gets ground.” God speaks of it with wonder herd to scrape himself withal; and he sat 9 among the ashes. Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still hold fast thine integrity? 10 renounce God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips. 11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: and they made an appointment together to come to bemoan 12 him and to comfort him. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward 13 heaven. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.

and pleasure, and something of triumph in the power of His own grace—still he holds fast his integrity. Thus the trial of Job’s faith was found to his praise and honor (1 Pet. 1: 7). H.

Without cause. In estimating the justice of Job’s complaint, let us bear in mind that God Himself is represented as acknowledging that the visitation was causeless—that is, not just to Job’s deserts. In estimating himself as unjustly punished, Job sees as God sees. J. F. G.

4. Satan will have Job’s cause called over again. The malicious, unreasonable importunity of that great persecutor of the saints is represented (Rev. 12: 10) by his accusing them before our God day and night, still repeating and urging that against them which has been many a time answered; so did Satan here continue to accuse Job. H.

Skin for skin. The meaning is, “Who is there that will not give another skin to save his own; nay, part with his children, as well as his goods, to save his life?” Bishop Patrick. —The general sense is determined by the context: so long as a man’s own person is untouched he may bear any loss with comparative firmness, give up the skin or life of others, even of his children, so that his own be safe; and if he attributes his preservation to God, may still retain his allegiance. Satan can recognize no principle of action but selfishness, and finds in it alone the secret of Job’s firmness. Cook.—The unqualified statement is unqualifiedly false. Men will die for their honor, for their country, for God and truth. Behrends.

5. In his former aspersion of Job, Satan had only hinted that his religion was not quite genuine; it was profitable, and therefore carefully attended to. Here he goes a great way deeper, and maligns human nature in its very humanity. Man is not only irreligious except for profit (so said Satan, and so say the ungodly always), but he is inhuman. What are usually regarded as possessions of the most irreligious men (the natural virtues)—love of kind and kindred, the deeper affections of family, on which so much fine sentiment has been expended—they are matters of profit too. Man caxes little for friend or family, only he be safe himself. Put forth thy hand and touch his own bone and flesh, and his viperish nature will rise like the trodden serpent, and disown thee to thy face. A. B. D.—The essence of sin in its ordinary human manifestation is to be unable to live from any higher motive than self; its essence in the life of Satan is to be unable to conceive of any higher motive than self. The spirit of evil in man often makes virtue tributary to self; the spirit of evil in Satan takes the very constancy of virtue as proof only of more intense selfishness. The devil’s logic in the case of Job ran in this wise: the more steadfast Job seems to be, the more inhuman must he be. Evans.

The hour of affliction is an hour of temptation. Satan loves to fish when the waters are troubled. He would bring us to hard thoughts of God by the hard things we suffer from God. “Touch him, and he will curse Thee to Thy face.” In such stormy weather some vessels are cast away. Faith is a special antidote against the poison of the wicked one. It can read love in the blackest character of Divine dispensation, as by a rainbow we see the beautiful image of the sun’s light in the midst of a dark and waterish cloud. Swinnock.—Satan knew, and we find by experience, that nothing is more likely to ruffle the thoughts and put the mind into disorder than acute pain and distemper of body. There is no disputing against sense. Paul himself had much ado to bear a thorn in the flesh, nor could he have borne it without special grace from Christ (2 Cor. 12: 7, 9). H.

7. Smote Job with sore boils. With a loathsome and universal leprosy, a disease common in the East and in hot countries. It is of two kinds, the white and the black. This latter is commonly called elephantiasis, because it renders the skin, like that of the elephant, uneven and wrinkled, with many furrows. Hales.—The malady with which Job was afflicted is now generally believed to have been the leprosy of the Arabs, called also elephantiasis, from the swelling of the feet and the thickening and roughness of the skin. In this disease small spots first appear on the skin; then tumors of the size of a pea at first, increasing to that of a walnut or a hen’s egg, with deep furrows between, covering the whole body. Finally, many of these suppurate and form ulcers, with a bloody and very offensive discharge, which dries and hardens to dark-colored scales. The face becomes bloated and glistening, the eyes feeble and watery, the breath offensive, the voice weak and hoarse, or entirely lost. The sufferer is subject to extreme dejection; his nights are sleepless or harassed with frightful dreams. In the last stage of the disease the extremities perish and fall off, the bones and ligaments being destroyed by the ulceration. No cure has been found for this terrible malady, though the patient may survive many years. Conant.—The mere description of these symptoms will suffice to show with what infernal malice and skill such a disease was selected by one who well knew the influence of the body upon the mind. It was chosen as the fittest of any to bring the patriarch into that state of mind which Satan’s purposes, or rather his arguments required; and if the reader studies the utterances of Job attentively, he will be enabled without difficulty to trace the progressive influences of the disease upon his mind, and to measure the degrees by which his soul succumbed to its power.

8. That we may realize the picture of Job in his humiliation to our minds, the writer sets him visibly before us, seated in the ashes and scraping himself with a potsherd. We read this, and never more forget the picture these simple words print upon the mind. Nothing can surpass or approach the utter forlornness which this picture indicates. He who had been erewhile the greatest man in the east country seems to have been left to himself—forsaken of all. Kitto.

9. No personage in all the Scriptures has suffered more at the hands of critics, who have mistaken the true point of view, than the wife of Job, who cried, “Renounce God, and die.” They will have it that she was destitute of piety toward God, and of love and sympathy toward her husband. Taking the simplest view of the great scope of this book, and the characters who figure in it, nothing could be more unjust than such criticism. There is no intimation (unless the single allusion, 19:17, be overstrained to this end) in the whole book to any unhappiness in Job’s domestic life. There is nothing to show that she was not his joy and solace, and united with him in his earnest religious life, approving and sharing his uprightness and pious trust in God. And when his subsequent prosperity came there is no hint that she marred in any way its happiness. Nay, so far as appears from the record she had been found strong enough in the faith to bear with meek submission the loss of property and family. She uttered no word of protest against Job’s pious ejaculation, “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away;” and from all that we can gather she had parted with all that she held dear on earth without a word of repining. I would understand it therefore as rather a proof of her unbounded love and admiration for her husband that though she could bear up under all that had gone before, she should now break down under despair; as she saw the earthly prop and stay of her soul subjected to such misery and suffering, that her faith should pass under a cloud, and she should regard it as a pitiless and cruel providence that so holy a man as her husband should thus have judgments heaped upon him. The manifest design of the sacred writer is to bring out the marvellous faith of Job by contrasting it with the great faith of his wife, which, great as it was, failed at the last extremity. S. R.

10. The loving wife, in the frenzy of her anguish, has ranged herself unwittingly on the tempter’s side. That she did this under the impulse of her affections seems to be implied in the connection. Her words are introduced as adding force to the temptation, and affording a fresh exhibition of the firmness of Job’s piety. His reply to her suggestion is not harsh and severe, as it is frequently interpreted, but rather the language of pained surprise. It is not a stern censure, but a mild rebuke, though decided in its rejection of her ill-judged counsel. He does not charge her with being herself a foolish woman, whether the meaning be destitute of sense or lacking in true piety. He simply says this was not spoken like herself; she had spoken not with her usual wisdom and pious feeling, but as one of the foolish women speaketh. “What, shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?”

Job did not understand that pain and suffering were or could be anything else but evils. Yet regarding them simply in this light, as evils, and evils received from the hand of God, they did not blind him to the fact of the Divine goodness and the great preponderance of blessing received from His bountiful hand. The evil does not by any means match the good, much less outweigh it. Shall we forget the immensity of the benefits bestowed because He also sends some suffering? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? Job is again victorious, and the tempter is once more foiled. His piety has proved equal to the severity of this fresh test to which it was subjected. “In all this,” the record runs, “did not Job sin with his lips.” But Job’s trial is not yet ended. He has passed through two stages of it, and has successfully surmounted them. Thus far his piety has borne the test triumphantly, to the confusion of the tempter. W. H. G.

A second victory has thus been gained over Satan. He has dealt his last direct blow against God’s servant, and an answer has been found to his question, “Doth Job fear God for nought?” It has been proved that Job’s religion has some deeper foundation than self-interest; that he serves God not from mercenary motives, but because he acknowledges God’s right to his allegiance. Amid the wreck of his fortunes his integrity survives, and, bereft of all earthly good, his faith in God and in goodness stands firm. E. Bayley.—Job is now seen lying under a quaternion of troubles—adversity, bereavement, disease, and reproach. “He sinned not with his lips”—the thing Satan desired, endeavored after, and waited for. The temptation to murmur was present, but was resisted and repressed. Job is still by grace a conqueror over corrupt nature. T. Robinson.—Since it is out of doubt the devil may have some hand in our outward affliction, we are concerned to take so much the more care that he may not have his end upon us by it. A hand he may have, and we cannot determine how far; but whether it be more or less, great care we are concerned to take how to frustrate his design. He has the most mischievous ends that can be, and designs worse things to us than the affliction which is the means, whatsoever that be. He would fain engage us in a controversy with God, would have us contend with him; murmur, fret, blaspheme and curse God, and therewith send out our last and dying breath. That was his design upon Job. Let us labor to frustrate it, as he did. South.

At the close of the account of Job’s first trial, and the manner in which he sustained it, the words occur: “In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly;” that is, did not charge God with unreasonableness in so afflicting him. At the end of his second trial, the same words occur, with a variation, which is not without meaning: “In all this did not Job sin with his lips.” Such declarations are not afterward repeated, and seem to be purposely introduced to mark the tendency of his state of feeling, and to assist our comprehension of his character. From the comparison of these two declarations, it appears clearly designed that we should understand that Job’s mind had already, at the point last indicated, been touched with some hard thoughts of God, but he had hitherto fought against them, and refused to give them utterance. Hence, although he has no longer the praise of being, even in thought, sinless in this matter, the lower praise is allowed him that he had not yet sinned with his lips. That this is at this point inserted, and is afterward withheld, seems purposely intended to indicate that afterward he did “charge God foolishly,” and did “sin with his lips.” There can be no doubt that thus far Job is still set forth to us as an example of patience. His mastering of the unruly tongue is the very quality which the Apostle James sets forth as a high point of Christian perfection; and we shall acquiesce, as we are bound to do, in this estimate, when we reflect how over-swift the tongue is to clothe the evil thought in words, so that it will often happen that it has been uttered almost before we are fully conscious that it has been conceived or entertained. He, therefore, who is enabled so to hold himself in that under the severest trials no ill-considered words—no words dishonoring God—fall from him, shows himself to be endowed with a grace of no mean account. Kitto.

The Apostle James, in the energetic and paradoxical language so peculiar to him, exhorts us “to count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations;” and calls “blessed” not the man who is not tempted, but him who “endureth temptation;” that is to say, who undergoes it without yielding to it; for, “when he is tried”—viz., when he has resisted in seasons of trial—“he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love Him.” In order to enlighten Job’s faith, to strengthen his heart and perfect his joy, the cruel display of Satan’s malice was necessary. The perfidious detractors who cast Daniel into the lion’s den were necessary to him, in order that he might know during the peaceful night which he spent amid those terrible animals all the power and all the faithfulness of his God. Paul needed that “thorn in his flesh,” that “messenger of Satan sent to buffet him,” that he might be kept humble, and not “exalted above measure through the abundance of his revelations;” that he might feel the power of that word which comforted him, and which will comfort the saints to the end of time—“When I am weak, then am I strong.” Peter needed that court of the high-priest to show him his own weakness; so that, after the confession and the forgiveness of his sin, he might reappear in the eyes of the church worthier than ever of the distinction which the Lord had bestowed upon him, and which he continued to him notwithstanding his fall. Monod.

God is educating us not for immediate effects merely, but for eternity. All our discipline is for lasting purposes, not transitory results; and God will form us to habits of life, not mere temporary excitements. God will work in us elements of character, not mere fitful impulses. We look too much to present frames, enjoyments, fruits; God looks to eternal results, and an eternal life of holiness and glory. We look to feelings, emotions, speculations; God looks to active habits, and a life made up of principles and habits, which shall be the eternal, inalienable nature of our being. G. B. C.—Measure not God’s love and favor by your own feeling. The sun shines as clearly in the darkest day as it does in the brightest. The difference is not in the sun, but in some clouds which hinder the manifestation of the light thereof. So God loves as well when He shines not in the brightness of His countenance upon us as when He does. Job was as much beloved of God in the midst of his miseries as afterward in the abundance of his mercies. Sibbes.

11-13. Job’s three friends, having heard of his misfortunes, come to condole with him. How long time intervened between Job’s second affliction and the arrival of his friends cannot be accurately ascertained. From the allusions in chaps. 7, 19 and 30, it is probable that a considerable time elapsed. A man of Job’s rank would not choose his friends from the men of inferior station around him; they would be, like himself, Eastern princes, all but his equals in rank and influence. Their abodes would therefore be distant from one another, and more distant from his, and travelling in the East is slow. The tone of Job’s mind, too, as reflected in chap. 3, has undergone a change, the effect, no doubt, of protracted sufferings.