Job 2


1 On another day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them to present himself before him.


2 And the LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”


Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”


3 Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.”


4 “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give all he has for his own life. 5 But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”


6 The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life.”


7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

8 Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes.


9 His wife said to him, “Are you still maintaining your integrity? Curse God and die!”


10 He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.


11 When Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.



Snapshot 15: SKIN IN THE GAME


Job 2


We are not told how long later the second conversation came.  It seems like it would be soon after but could be ten years.  God does time differently than we do.  God and Satan have a similar conversation to the first one.  Where have you been?  Here and there.  Reminds me of a teen who is late for curfew and avoiding answering.  


God again calls Satan's attention to Job.  WHY?  It seems unfair to Job.  He tells Satan – you lost.  Job did not lose his integrity with his possessions.  I can see the poetry element here in the repetition and patterns.    


The idea that the loss was without cause means that the suffering was not Job's fault.  Not all suffering is rooted in sin.  


Satan believes the cut was just not deep enough and wants to attack Job's health.  Bibleheads say “skin for skin” was a term that meant a willingness to trade another's wellbeing for your own.  In other words, Job was willing to trade the lives of his kids for the safety of his own life.  I know I would rather die than have my children die.  Satan does not see things like that.  He urges God to take Job's health and predicts that Job will curse God.  


God gives Satan authority over Job but will not allow Satan to kill him.  God is in control but allows Satan some rope.  Satan gives Job a boil disease.  Skin for skin takes on a gross meaning.  Job sits in ashes and scrapes himself with broken pottery.  Sounds really dirty and painful.  I bet he was feeling sorry for himself.  Physical suffering makes everything look worse – even hopeless.  Having things on your face makes you ugly.  Having things on your soles makes you unable to walk.  


Ashes are a sign of mourning.  Broken pottery is used to show brokenness in the NT.  


Job's wife was not supportive.  She tells him to curse God and die.  Nice lady. Maybe that is why she is not given a name.  She was happy when life was good but turns nasty when the times are bad.  It is hard not to be bitter.  Job must have married her for her other assets rather than her character.  


Job is not shaken.  He tells her that he accepts both troubles and blessings from God.  Job did not sin in this.  Interesting because he acknowledges that God is a source of the troubles.  That is not a sin.  


We next meet three of Job's friends.  Termanite sounds like a pest control product.  Bildad sounds like a Hobbit character.  They are going to comfort Job.  Nice of them.  They see Job and barely recognized him.  They put dust on themselves and then sit quietly with Job for a week.  Well, they must be good friends to stay a week and to risk getting sick.  But they were supposed to be comforting him.  I guess sitting with him in the soot was a comfort.    I would rather have friends who bring washcloths, medicine, and snacks.  That is what women do, but these were guys.  They were present for him.  Sometimes that is all you can do.  


To sidetrack a bit, I was still thinking about the idea that our lives are being used for a purpose beyond earth. I looked up some commentary on the topic and found little useful about Job. I did find some interesting commentary on the Eph 3:10-11 section. Here is a sample of what I found with more verses of interest: Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers:


In this verse St. Paul passes on to consider the manifestation of God in Christ as brought home not only to the race of man but to the angels—“the principalities and powers in the heavenly places”—who are described (1Peter 1:12) as “desiring to look into” the consummation of the gospel mystery. In the same sense the Apostles, in their ministration of the gospel, are said to be a spectacle to angels and to men (1Corinthians 4:9); and in a magnificent passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 12:22), Christians are encouraged in their warfare by knowing it to go on before “the city of the living God” and “an innumerable company of angels.” The angels are, therefore, represented to us as not only ministering in the Church of Christ, but learning from its existence and fortunes to know more and more of the wisdom of God. Hence we gain a glimpse of a more than world-wide purpose in the supreme manifestation of God's mercy in Christ, fulfilled towards higher orders of God's rational creatures, aiding even them in progress towards the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ, which is life eternal. (There is a notable passage on a kindred idea in Butler's Analogy, Part i., c. Iii. § 5.) This world, itself a speck in the universe, may be—perhaps as a scene of exceptional rebellion against God, certainly as a scene of God's infinite goodness—a lesson to other spheres of being, far beyond our conception. Possibly this view of angels as our fellow-learners in the school of Christ may have been specially dwelt upon in view of the worship of angels of which we read in Colossians 2:18; but it accords well with the wide sweep of thought characteristic of this Epistle, literally “gathering up all things in Christ.”


Verses referenced:

1 Peter 1:12: It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.


1 Cor 4:9: For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings.


Hebrews 12:22: But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly,


Col 2:18: Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind.


Interesting stuff.  


So, as we look at Job, one purpose behind Job's suffering is to instruct heavenly beings.  We are a demonstrative aid of some sort.   Another purpose is to create character and hope in us.  That seems counter-intuitive but think about how close we pulled to God during hard times.  Look at Romans 5:3-4:   “but we also glory in our suffering because we know that suffering produces perseverance: perseverance, character; and character, hope.”  


So, using math transitive law, suffering can lead to hope.  Cool, but I still hate suffering.  I hope God never tells Satan to notice me.