Job 2:1–13

¹Again 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. ²And 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.” ³Then 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.” ⁴So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. ⁵But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” ⁶And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.” ⁷So 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. ⁸And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes. ⁹Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” ¹⁰But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. ¹¹Now 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. ¹²And 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. ¹³So 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.

Commentary 

Vs. 1–10 ¹Again 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. ²And 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.” ³Then 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.”

⁴So Satan answered the Lord and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. ⁵But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” ⁶And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.” ⁷So 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. ⁸And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes. ⁹Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” ¹⁰But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

The scene now returns to heaven where once again the sons of God appear before Him. And again, Satan also appears with them (for more on this see commentary on chapter 1). And once again when questioned by God, Satan does not give a direct answer to His question, but only answers in the vaguest terms possible (vs. 1-2). And once again the Lord points to Job as a man unlike all others on earth, a man who is blameless and upright in all of his conduct, even after all the Lord had allowed Satan to steal and destroy all that was his. Now it must be observed and noted that the Lord was in no way indifferent to Job’s massive loses, (as we will see at the end of the Book), but that for now Job is serving as His witness to Satan, that Satan never has, nor will he ever have any grounds for his own rebellion against the Lord (vs. 1-3). Nonetheless Satan is not moved by Job’s outstanding response even after being attacked so viciously by him. But instead, he quickly dismisses Job's upright response as only being motivated by his wanting to spare himself, saying to the Lord, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. ⁵But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” ^{vs. 4-5}

Once again, Satan is only interested in disproving the Lord, in seeing one of His saints faulter and fail. Nonetheless as we will later see the Lord has a far greater purpose in allowing Job’s sufferings, and eventual his fall (in this consider Daniel 12:10). And so, the Lord once again grants Satan his request, and once again He puts boundaries on him, saying to Satan that he cannot take Job’s life (vs.6). And with that Satan goes out from the presence of the Lord and strikes Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head (vs. 7). Thus, Job having lost everything else he loved and held dear now must bear the loss of his own health. And so he now sits down in the midst of the ashes of all that was once his and begins scraping himself with a broken piece of pottery, trying to relive himself of his painful boils (vs. 8). It is then while scraping himself in the midst of all his loses that his wife now appears to him and she says to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” ^{Vs. 9} Job though will not listen to such talk and he says to her, … “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (vs. 10). Now if the Book of Job were to end here, we would all think Job as a most noble and honorable man of God, who had passed the testing of God without the slightest faulter. However the faces we put on in public after suffering deep loses don’t always reveal the pain we feel and express in private when those loses settle in. And that is where chapter three will begin. But first Job will be visited by three friends, who upon hearing of all that has happened to Job have come to visit him.

Vs. 11-13 ¹¹Now 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. ¹²And 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. ¹³So 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. 

We are now introduced to Job's three friends. The first one named is Eliphaz the Temanite, now with his being being named first this is likely indicating that he the eldest, or the most premiant of the three. (Now a quick search of his name indicates that he may have been descendant of Esau, Gen. 36:11, though this cannot be fully confirmed). Next mentioned then is a man called Bildad the Shuhite, he may have been a descendant of Abraham and Keturah (Gen. 25:1-4), though again this is only speculation. And finally Zophar the Naamathite, who by his title was likely from the region of Nammah, and being named last he was the youngest and most zealous of the three as we will see. All three of them then having agreed to meet together with Job, now come to Job to mourn with him and comfort him over all his loses. However to their grave surprise when they arrived where Job was, they do not recognize him, for there are no fine clothes, no wife and children, not even any servants around him, instead all they see is a broken man covered in painful boils sitting in a pile of ashes with his head bowed down. And so, each one of them when they see Job like this are completely taken aback, for no one expected to see him like this, and seeing him like this, each one of them immediately tears their own robe and sprinkles dust on their head and sits down with him on the ground, so as to be united with Job in his mourning. Now for seven days and seven nights no one says a word to him, for they all saw that his grief was very great (vs. 13). It is then in chapter three that Job will speak first.

Scripture Quotations

New King James (1982): Thomas Nelson.