Job 2:6

And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold he is in thine hand ; i.e. "he is in thy power, to do with him as thou pleasest"—except in one respect. Again it is strongly marked that Satan's power is under God's control, and extends only so far as God shows. But save his life ; rather, only spare his life (Revised Version). The didactic purposes for which God was allowing his faithful servant to be tried in the furnace of affliction would have been frustrated by Job's removal from the earth. Individually he might equally well have been compensated in another world; but then the lesson of his example to living men, and the lesson of his story to all future generations of mankind, would have been lost. Besides, God but rarely, in the old world, gave a faithful servant, still in the full vigour of life ( Job 42:16 , Job 42:17 ), "over unto death" ( Psalms 118:18 ).