God permitted Satan to test Job twice.23The first test touched his possessions, including his children (1:6-22), and the second his person (2:1-10). God permitted Satan to afflict Job to demonstrate and to purify Job's motives for worshipping God and for living a godly life (cf. James 1:2-4). The writer takes us behind the scenes in this pericope (1:6-2:10) so we can know why Job's calamities befell him. In each test we first see Satan accusing Job in heaven and then attacking him on earth.24
These verses reveal that angels ("sons of God,"v. 6), including Satan, periodically report to God on their activities. Satan was doing then what he still does today, namely, "seeking whom he may devour"(1 Pet. 5:8).25
Satan's accusation (vv. 9-11) articulates one of the main questions of this book: why do righteous people such as Job live upright lives? Satan said Job did so because Job had learned that there is an inevitable connection between deed and state of being (i.e., godliness results in prosperity). This idea, that the relationship between God and man rests on retribution--we always reap in kind what we sow--is one that Job held. However, his fear (reverential trust) of God ran deeper than Satan realized.
Satan determined to prove that Job would not obey God if he got nothing in return. He believed selfishness prompted Job's obedience rather than love. Satan also believed that God would not get worship from Job if He stopped blessing him.
"Cynicism is the essence of the satanic. The Satan believes nothing to be genuinely good--neither Job in his disinterested piety nor God in His disinterested generosity."26
Why does God allow Satan to test believers? He allowed Satan to test Job to silence Satan and to strengthen Job's character (cf. James 1:1-18).
"The primary purpose of Job's suffering, unknown to him, was that he should stand before men and angels as a trophy of the saving might of God . . ."27
The Sabeans (v. 15) may have come from a region in southwest Arabia called Sheba or from the town of Sheba located in upper Arabia (cf. Gen. 10:7; 25:3). The Chaldeans (v. 17) came from Mesopotamia to the north.
Tearing one's robe (v. 20) typically expressed great grief in the ancient Near East. Shaving the head (v. 20) evidently symbolized the loss of personal glory. Hair in the ancient world was a symbol of one's glory (cf. 2 Sam. 14:26). Job apparently fell to the ground to worship God (v. 20). A mother's womb is a figure for the earth (v. 21; cf. Ps. 139:15; Eccles. 5:15; 12:7).
Job's recognition of Yahweh's sovereignty (v. 21) was a key to his passing his test. In some respects he regarded God as an equal (cf. 9:33), but underneath he knew God was his sovereign. This conception of God is one that Job never lost, though many people who go through trials do.
"Job's exclamation is the noblest expression to be found anywhere of a man's joyful acceptance of the will of God as his only good. A man may stand before God stripped of everything that life has given him, and still lack nothing."28
Job grieved but worshipped. These two activities are not incompatible. He saw God's hand in the events of his life. Moreover he had a proper perspective on his possessions. His faith did not relieve his agony; it caused it.
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, v. 4).
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 (vv. 7-8) seems to have been a disease called pemphigus foliaceous or something similar to it, perhaps elephantiasis (cf. vv. 7, 8, 12; 3:24-25; 7:5; 9:18; 16:16; 19:17, 20; 30:17, 27, 30; 33:21). It appears to have afflicted Job for several months (cf. 7:3; 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 (29:7).
Another effect of his disease was his wife's reaction (v. 9). She evidently concluded that God was not being fair with Job. He had lived a godly life, but God had afflicted rather than rewarded him. She had the same retributive view of the divine human relationship that Job and his friends had, but she was "foolish"(v. 10, spiritually ignorant, not discerning). Her frustration in seeing her husband suffer without being able to help him or to understand his situation probably 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 third result of Job's suffering was his fresh submission to God (v. 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 (v. 5) and vindicated God's words (v. 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.29
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 our minds. He has great power over individuals and nature, but his power is subject to the sovereign authority of God.
