August 21

Job 1:1-3:26; 1 Corinthians 14:1-17; Psalm 37:12-29; Proverbs 21:25-26

Esther has written previously about her response to difficult Scriptures: consult a commentary or two in order to unpack what's really going on.  I can't think of many books more difficult than Job.  It seems like God is offering Job to Satan as a guinea pig, and there's so much suffering (I cannot imagine the loss), and there's even a second round of disaster, not to mention an unsupportive wife and, later, unhelpful friends.  So many hard things.  There was nothing else for me to do but go off to the commentaries.

I'm so glad I did.  Some very interesting bits that I'd never have seen or considered:

• Satan has access to heaven and is in some sort of relationship with God (Job 1:6; 2:1).  I find this disconcerting.  Why would Satan present himself before God?

• Satan's response to God's question ("From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it" [Job 1:7 and 2:2]) is not a vague answer trying to avoid trouble, like a teenager home late on curfew.  His words are actually more like a challenge to God.  He's boasting of surveying the domain he considers his: the earth and its inhabitants.  Twice.

• God's next speech to Satan reminds Satan of true reality: the earth is the Lord's and everything in it (see 1 Cor. 10:26).  As an example, he mentions Job.  Though Satan may have dominion over the earth, God's people and plan are yet unpolluted.  Way to go, Job, that you could stand as an example (see Job 1:8 - "no one on earth like him...blameless...upright")!

• Satan accuses Job of deep, essential selfishness.  He sneers that Job only follows God for what God can give him (Job 1:9-11) and then slanders Job's character further by supposing that his grief over the loss of his wealth and children is mitigated by the relief he feels over his own survival (2:4-5).  How awful.

• God throws Satan's words back in his face.  The Hebrew word for "without any reason" (Job 2:3) is the same word that Satan uses in 1:9 "for nothing."

• Job is truly extraordinary.  While his wife (who, let us notice, experiences the same calamities that Job does) fulfills Satan's predictions ("he will surely curse you to your face" [Job 1:11, 2:5]) with her response (see 2:9), Job does not.  He does not ask, "Why me?," but instead considers, "Why not me?"  What a statement to say at such a time: "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" (2:10)

• His friends, for all the bad press they'll get later on, do some very good mourning with Job, as the New Testament urges.  They weep with him, adopt the same mourning distinctions (torn robes, ashed heads), and sit with him in silence for days.

The ultimate question in Job is whether or not Job will worship and trust in the midst of his undeserved suffering.  It is an equally apt question for our world and our lives.

As an aside, scholars think that Job may have been afflicted with pemphigus.  Here's the Wikipedia link for those of you who are medically minded, click here.

- Sarah Marsh

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