Job 2:3

“Again there was a day” takes us back to the first council in Job 1:6. The word for day, yôwm, means a day or a span of time, and with “again” it tells us that the assembly is meeting a second time, as a gathering that recurs. It follows directly on Job’s answer to his first losses, when he worshipped and said, “the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:20–22). The first wave of trials has failed to break him, and this verse opens the second.

The “sons of God” (b’nei ha’elohim) are angelic beings who serve in God’s heavenly court. They are created beings who answer to the LORD alone. “To present themselves” translates yâtsab, which means to place or station oneself, so the picture is of servants taking their stand before their king to give account. Scripture shows this court in other places. Micaiah saw the host of heaven standing before the LORD (1 Kings 22:19–23), and Zechariah saw Satan standing to accuse Joshua the high priest (Zechariah 3:1–2). The nations round about told of assemblies of gods. Job shows one LORD who rules every being in the court.

Satan “came also among them”. The Hebrew sâṭân means an adversary or opponent, and here it carries the article, haśśāṭān, “the adversary”, which marks out the role he plays. He comes to challenge and accuse God’s servants, which is why Revelation calls him “the accuser of our brethren” (Revelation 12:10). He also comes because he must, since he too has to present himself before the LORD. Scripture describes all this in human terms, as a king holding court, so that we can understand what is otherwise hidden from us. Job himself is left unaware of the whole conversation, while we are allowed to hear it.

“From whence comest thou?” The name used for God here is Yᵉhôvâh, his covenant name, the personal name of the self-existent God. He asks as the one who already knows the answer. The question is a summons that makes Satan give account of himself, and it shows that the adversary works under God’s eye.

Satan’s reply uses two verbs. “Going to and fro” is shûwṭ, a word for moving back and forth, like a mariner rowing to and fro, and it suggests a scout or patrol covering ground with a purpose. “Walking up and down” is hâlak, the common verb for going and walking, which adds the sense of constant movement over the whole earth. Together they describe a restless adversary who surveys the earth for weaknesses and for people to accuse. Peter writes of him in the same way: “your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Paul likewise says that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood” (Ephesians 6:12). Behind suffering that we can see there is often a conflict that we cannot.

God again brings up Job himself, and he calls him “my servant Job”, a title of honour that shows God’s regard for him even as he permits the trial. He then repeats, almost word for word, the praise he gave in Job 1:8: there is none like him in the earth, “a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil.” These four things describe Job’s character, his conduct, his reverence for God and his deliberate turning away from wickedness, and they match the book’s first description of him (Job 1:1).

The new words are “and still he holdeth fast his integrity.” The verb is châzaq, a word for being or making strong and firm. Job has kept a firm hold on his wholeness before God through the loss of his wealth and his children. Satan had said that Job’s reverence would fail once the blessings were gone, and God now states the result of the first test in Satan’s hearing.

God also says, “thou movedst me against him, to destroy him.” He names Satan as the one who urged the trial and whose aim was Job’s destruction, and he speaks as the one who gave the permission.

“Skin for skin” is a proverb about exchange: a man will hand over what is less dear to him in order to save what is dearer. The Hebrew is ‘ôr bə‘aḏ ‘ôr, and ‘ôwr is the ordinary word for skin or hide. Satan’s point is that Job’s first losses, terrible as they were, lay outside his own body. Job could bear them, Satan says, because his own skin was still whole.

Satan then states the rule he believes about everyone: “all that a man hath will he give for his life.” The words are plain ones. ʼîysh is a man, nâthan is to give, and nephesh, “life”, means a breathing creature and so a person’s life, soul or self. Satan claims that every person loves himself first and God only for what God gives, so that Job’s worship is a bargain for his own safety. The verse opens with the usual pair ‘ânâh and ʼâmar, “answered” and “said”, and what follows them is a direct challenge to what God has just declared.

The question Satan raises is whether anyone can serve God for who he is. Scripture speaks of such testing elsewhere. God led Israel through the wilderness to prove them and to know what was in their heart (Deuteronomy 8:2–3). Peter says that faith is tried with fire so that it may be found genuine (1 Peter 1:6–7), and Paul says that tribulation works patience, experience and hope (Romans 5:3–5). There is an irony in the scene, because the accuser who sets out to prove Job’s faith false becomes the means by which God shows it to be true.

“But” translates ʼûwlâm, a strong “however” that sets Satan’s demand against God’s praise of Job. “Put forth thine hand now” is a request, and the request is itself an admission. Satan has to ask, because Job’s body is out of his reach until God allows it. The “now” presses for the test to begin at once.

“Touch” is nâgaʻ, which means to touch, reach or strike, and here it means a blow that lands on Job’s own person. “His bone and his flesh” names the whole body, so the suffering Satan proposes goes as deep as a man’s body can feel.

“He will curse thee to thy face” is Satan’s prediction. The verb is bârak, which ordinarily means to bless or to kneel. In a few places where the object is God or a king it stands as a reverent substitute for its opposite, to renounce or revile, and the KJV rightly gives “curse”. “To thy face” means openly and defiantly. Satan is sure that pain will turn a man who blesses God into a man who blasphemes him.

The LORD grants the request with a limit attached. “Hand” is yâd, which stands for power and control, so Job is placed under Satan’s power for this test, and that power is lent to Satan by God. “Save” is shâmar, to keep, guard or preserve, and it is given as a command. “Life” is nephesh again, the word Satan used in verse 4. Satan had said that a man will give everything for his life, and God puts that very life beyond Satan’s reach.

The limit tells us several things. Life and death belong to God, as he says of himself in Deuteronomy 32:39. Job’s life has worth in God’s eyes in the middle of the trial. Job will remain alive to speak and to choose, which the test requires, and the command hints that he will come through it. Satan goes out and strikes Job with boils in the very next verse (Job 2:7), and he goes exactly as far as he was allowed. Paul says the same of every believer’s trials: God is faithful and will not let us be tempted above what we are able to bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). The counsel of the LORD stands while he brings the plans of others to nothing (Psalm 33:10–11).

Job’s suffering “without cause” points ahead to Jesus Christ. Job’s integrity was real and was proved by testing. Christ’s was perfect, that of a lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Peter 1:19). He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and he suffered for the sins of others: “he was wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5). He redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made a curse for us (Galatians 3:13).

Christ also answers Satan’s proverb. Satan said that a man will give everything for his life. Jesus gave his life as “a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45) and “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). He taught that the one who loves his life loses it (John 12:25). Satan predicted that a suffering man would curse God to his face, and on the cross Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), which was the cry of an obedient Son still calling on his God.

Christ met the adversary directly. He resisted every temptation in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–11), and in casting out demons he showed that he had bound the strong man and was plundering his house (Mark 3:27). At the cross he spoiled principalities and powers and triumphed over them openly (Colossians 2:15), and through death he destroyed him that had the power of death, freeing those held in bondage by the fear of it (Hebrews 2:14–15). The accuser who stood in the court of Job 2 has been cast down, and where he accused, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). God kept Job’s life for a time. Christ gives his sheep eternal life, and none can pluck them out of his hand (John 10:28). Paul adds the promise that “the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly” (Romans 16:20).

This passage lets us see behind a suffering man’s life, and what it shows is God on the throne. The adversary is real, active and cruel, and he is also a creature who must report to the LORD and stop where the LORD says stop. A trial that reaches a believer has passed through God’s hands first, and it comes with a boundary that God himself has drawn.

The passage also frees us from the reckoning of Job’s friends. God says that the man suffering most in this book is the most upright man on earth, so pain is no proof of God’s anger, in our own lives or in someone else’s. God knew Job’s heart when Job could not see God at all, and he spoke well of him in a court Job never heard.

Satan’s question is put to every believer in time: whether we love God for who he is or for what he gives. Job’s answer was to hold fast, and the Lord who kept Job’s life keeps those who belong to Christ.