Job 2:1-10

2. The second test 2:1-10

Satan again claimed that Job served God only because God had made it advantageous for Job to do so. Job still had his own life. Satan insinuated that Job had been willing to part with his own children and his animals (wealth) since he still had his own life (skin, Job 2:4).

"Satan implies that Job, by his doxology had only feigned love for God as the exorbitant but necessary fee for health insurance." [Note: Kline, p. 463.]

Satan could do nothing to Job without God’s permission. Having received that, he went out to strip Job of his health. In view of the symptoms mentioned later in the book, Job’s ailment (Job 2:7-8) seems to have been a disease called pemphigus foliaceous or something similar to it, perhaps elephantiasis (cf. Job 2:7-8; Job 2:12; Job 3:24-25; Job 7:5; Job 9:18; Job 16:16; Job 19:17; Job 19:20; Job 30:17; Job 30:27; Job 30:30; Job 33:21). It appears to have afflicted Job for several months (cf. Job 7:3; Job 29:2).

Job’s illness resulted in an unclean condition that made him a social outcast. He had to take up residence near the city dump where beggars and other social rejects stayed. He had formerly sat at the city gate and enjoyed social prestige as a town judge (Job 29:7). The change in his location, from the best to the worst place, reflects the change in his circumstances, from the best to the worst conditions.

Another effect of his disease was his wife’s reaction (Job 2:9). She evidently concluded that God was not being fair with Job. He had lived a godly life, but God had afflicted rather than awarded him. She had the same retributive view of the divine-human relationship that Job and his friends did, but she was "foolish" (Job 2:10, spiritually ignorant, not discerning). Her frustration in seeing her husband suffer without being able to help him or to understand his situation undoubtedly aggravated her already chafed emotions. She gives evidence in the text of being bitter toward God. Had she been simply anxious that Job’s suffering would end, she probably would not have urged him to abandon his upright manner of life by cursing God.

"The narrative reminds us repeatedly of the temptation in Eden (Genesis 3). Job’s wife plays a role remarkably like that of Eve. Each woman succumbed to the tempter and became his instrument for the undoing of her husband. Satan had spared Job’s wife-as he had spared the four messengers-for his further use in his war on Job’s soul." [Note: Andersen, p. 88.]

"In times of severe testing, our first question must not be, ’How can I get out of this?’ but ’What can I get out of this?" [Note: Wiersbe, p. 13.]

The third result of Job’s suffering was his fresh submission to God (Job 2:10). Even though Job did not understand why he was in agony, he refused to sin with his lips by cursing God. He continued to worship God even though he gained nothing in return (cf. James 5:11). This response proved Satan wrong (Job 2:5) and vindicated God’s words (Job 2:3).

Though many people today conclude, as Job’s wife did, that the reason for suffering is that God is unjust, this is not the reason good people suffer. The basis for the relationship between God and man is not retribution, with good deeds resulting in prosperity and bad deeds yielding punishment in this life. [Note: For a critique of the "prosperity gospel" movement, which teaches that it is never God’s will for any believer to be sick or poor, see Ken K. Sarles, "A Theological Evaluation of the Prosperity Gospel," Bibliotheca Sacra 143:572 (October-December 1986):329-52.]

These two tests reveal much about Satan. He is an accuser of the righteous. He knows what is going on in the world and in the lives of individuals, though there is no evidence in Scripture that he can read people’s minds. He has great power over individuals and nature, but his power is subject to the sovereign authority of God.