job 2

Haystack bible commentary

"Stacks and stacks of commentary...."

===job 2:1-3:

Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. 
2 And the Lord said to Satan, “From where do you come?”
Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”
3 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.”

===job 2:4:

So Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.

​"Skin for skin" is a proverb of the east that has been variously interpreted. Most likely it means that Job has only been tested at only the superficial level and, therefore, has a superficial, response.  His philosophy was (and is) that men are basically self-centered creatures. When you attack them directly, they will give way, and they will give up their faith, their religion, anything, to save their own possessions. Now that argument has been fully answered. God has allowed Satan to test Job, and, though he lost his family and all his wealth, Job remained steadfast in his integrity, refusing to charge God with wrong. It is really a very sobering thing to realize that the tests that come into our life are aimed at getting us to curse God to his face, to tell him that he is wrong, that he does not keep his promises, that he is not the kind of a God that we have been told he is. If you take note of your own life you will recognize that, when under pressure, the thing you want more than anything else is to cry out in protest to God that he is not keeping his promises. That is where Satan always aims. He has the same philosophy and the same objective today: he wants us to curse God, as he wanted Job to curse God. The book of Job shows us that there are reasons and purposes in these trials and sufferings that we do not see. Job could not see what was going on behind the scenes, and neither can we. And yet God knows, and God is working out an object. He has a purpose for it, and it is a proper and right purpose that will end up manifesting more fully the love and compassion of his heart. The test of every trial is always to this end.   But Satan asks for a change in the rules because, in effect, he says to God, "You didn't go far enough. You put a boundary about Job and said I couldn't touch his body. That's the problem. It's true that a man may give up his possessions, but one thing he will never give up is his health. You let me get at him, let me destroy his health, and he will give up his integrity and his faith."
Self centeredness dominates all of Satans thinking. He cannot believe that the loss of possessions and family really matters if the person himself is untouched. Therefore, he uses self-centeredness, the only motive he knows, as an excuse for his failure and as a way to advance his next challenge to God.

---

===job 2:5:

But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse you to his face.

Satans tactic is to probe and probe until he finds the fatal flaw in a person's character that leads to sin. In Jesus' temptation Satan personalized his probe to appeal to Jesus specific needs at that time and place. So it is always. Most people are selectively strong or weak in character. This time God moves the boundaries closer. He says, "You can touch him." In fact, when Satan uses the phrase, "touch his bone and his flesh," he asks for access to the total humanity of Job. We still use that phrase today, flesh and bone, to speak of the totality of our humanity -- not only our physical body, but our emotional life as well, our conscious and subconscious thinking and reacting. And not only our soul, but our spirit as well. Satan is asking for access to this man Job, to touch him body, soul and spirit -- and he proceeds in that order. That constitutes the argument and basic assault recorded in the rest of the book of Job. Satan knows what he is after. He knows that if he can get at Job in every part of his being, he thinks that he can shake Job's faith and cause him to turn from his trust and confidence in God, and curse him to his face.
​

===job 2:6:

​And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.”

===job 2:7:

So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 

​​Satan smote Job, not God. The actual texts take less than two of the forty-two chapters of the Book of Job, less than five percent. If God does not waste words then he spent forty chapters hoping to reveal something. Because he knew Job's heart and he wanted to purify this "blameless and upright" man. God was not naive; he knew exactly what Satan would do and he never had to apologize to Job for letting Satan get to him. God actually set up the test to do something with Job's attitude. The affliction that Satan strikes Job with is often translated "painful boils." But in Hebrew, it is a single word (Shekhim) that should be more properly translated as "bad (skin) inflamation." Jobs disease has been diagnosed as anything from leprosy to elephantitas It should be noted that Satan still has no avenue of attack in the character of Job. His point of entry is physical. Most likely, Job carried in his body the weakness for the disease elephantitas (or leprosy). Once his immune system was broken down, he immediately became a candidate for the disease.
     Here we are given a viewpoint of Job and his suffering, one that Job himself is not permitted to have. We are given this because we too are not permitted this viewpoint in times of trial. We do not know what is going on behind the scenes in our lives, with our pressures and trials. We do not know what has transpired between Satan and God about us, but we are given this reassurance that something does happen, and that we are being subjected to a test. This is very important to realize.

When the orderly structure of the prologue fractures at v. 7, it does so as ruin comes upon Job’s very body. Much ink has been spilled in attempts to diagnose the specific condition with which Job suffered at the hands of Satan, but even without a correct diagnosis, the author provides enough description for readers to grasp the severity of Job’s malady. Sores completely cover his skin, and to make sure readers do not miss the point, the author calls the sores “loathsome.” The locus of Job’s affliction is significant. On the one hand, skin diseases have biblical precedent as a vehicle for divine retribution (see, for example, Numbers 12:10). That Job suffers in this way rather than another reinforces the notion that his condition was divinely willed and thus creates a site for the debate between Job and his friends, but there could be deeper significance, as well. As opposed to some internal malady, skin diseases are visible. The sight of such a disease, especially when acute, can be downright repulsive. On a basic level, our skin is the means through which we interact with the world, and even if a few kind souls are not repulsed, a condition like Job’s largely transforms the skin into a barrier between the sufferer and the world. In such a transformation, we can expect a less tangible means of interacting with the world to be transformed as well—namely, speech. --Harvard Divinity School; Dumb Suffering: A Consideration of Silence in Job 2:7-3:1 and 42:1-6

===job 2:9-10:

Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.
10 But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

January 6, 2023: Melodie Kauffman wrote: ​After seeing her husband lose his fortune, his family, and his health, Job’s wife is at her wit’s end. “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity?” she asks her husband in Job 2:9 (NLT). “Curse God and die!” This is the only time Job’s wife’s voice appears in this 42-chapter book. We learn scant details about her. Even her name is unknown. We know, however, that she is the wife of the book’s “hero.” A man described as “blameless and upright,” who “feared God and shunned evil” (Job 1:1). A man who is wealthy, blessed with many children, and “the greatest man among all the people of the East” (v. 3).

===job 2:11-12:

​Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. For they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him, and to comfort him.
​ 12 And when they raised their eyes from afar, and did not recognize him, they lifted their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven.

===job 2:13:

​So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.

How evangelicalism’s theology of victory erases lament
Going back further in Scripture, we see a picture of lament in the book of Job. And I want you to know Job is never condemned for his mourning. Even his friends, who want him to rush past his grief, sit with him in the town dump silently for a whole week (Job 2:13) before offering their bad advice. Job’s friends — notorious for their bad advice — still afford Job more space to grieve than does evangelical theology.
  (Baptist News Global 10/8/25) READMORE>>>>