Job 1:9

9. Doth Job fear God for nought The praise of piety implies its counterpart, the condemnation of evil. Smarting under the implied reproof, Satan retorts that Job’s virtue consists solely of selfish fear. Of the four graces mentioned, he craftily elects the most assailable the fear of God to which even diabolical nature might lay some claim. James 2:19.

For nought “Without good reason,” or “gratuitously?”

This question starts the problem of the book. Is Job not a hireling with whom pay is the only consideration? The first words from the lips of Satan of which man has record, (Genesis 3:1,) were a malicious reflection upon divine love. True to his nature as “accuser,” he can see in the best of human virtue only mercenary motives; and this, his first onset against Job, becomes a “reflection that sheds its poisonous venom” on a whole race. It is natural for fallen beings to depreciate that in others of which they are conscious that they themselves are deficient. “It is not amiss for every one, for his mere watchfulness, to mark that Satan knows Job as soon as ever God speaks of him.” Lightfoot.