The first Reading in Job with Initial Commentary

    Each reading in Job will take a similar form. It will go verse by verse, or section by section, with comments in italics between. The intent is to point out salient points, clarify some of the more obscure pieces and references, and give a running commentary on what is happening in the text.

    This is ALL DONE TO INVITE YOUR QUESTIONS, either for me or for your own opportunity to take a deeper look at God's Word.

 The First Reading: Job 1:1-2:10

1There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.

Uz is mentioned a couple of other times in the Old Testament, but never given a precise location, except in parallel to Edom. It may have a deliberately mythic property, being ‘out there’ somewhere.

That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. 

This is echoed in God’s assessment of Job in the coming Divine Council.

²There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. ³He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and very many servants;

All of these are measures of great and diverse material blessings, both in family and in livestock. The sheep are herd animals, providing wool, meat, and so forth. The camels, yoke of oxen, and donkeys, in such numbers, as beasts of burden. The implication of such numbers is that they are hired out, that Job has ‘corporate’ interests in providing donkeys and camels in transportation and yokes of oxen for plowing.

 so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the east.

Not just great, but the greatest. And Uz is in ‘the east’, presumably in reference to the Promised Land.

⁴His sons used to go and hold feasts in one another’s houses in turn; and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. 

This sets us up for two things. The first is that the children lived off the riches of their father. The second is the coming disaster that will befall them.

⁵And when the feast days had run their course, Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” This is what Job always did.

This builds on the description of Job that he was one who turned away from evil. It also foreshadows what Satan hopes to accomplish against Job in the coming verses.

⁶One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.

So this is a unique location in the Bible, this ‘Divine Council’. The heavenly beings, or the angels as some versions speak of them, are gathered as is Satan. His role is as ‘the Accuser’, not so much the classic ‘devil’ of Christianity.

 ⁷The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 

There is not a reason ascribed to this wandering, not even an implication that he is the devil, tempting people away from God.

⁸The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.”

This is formulaic, echoing the words that open the book. God pointing him out sets the stage for what is to come.

 ⁹Then Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? ¹⁰Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

Satan sets the stage for a presupposition connecting material wealth and faith. God has blessed Job’s work, multiplied his possessions, all with a fence around him to protect him. Bad things do not happen to Job, so of course he fears God.

 ¹¹But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 

Thus the challenge is issued. Job’s faith is tied to his blessings. Cut that tie and Job will do what he always fears his children will, curse God.

¹²The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, all that he has is in your power; only do not stretch out your hand against him!” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

God accepts the challenge, but only against his blessings. Job will taste poverty but he will maintain his health. Note how God has put all that Job has into the hands of Satan.

¹³One day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brother’s house, ¹⁴a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, ¹⁵and the Sabeans fell on them and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.” 

The Sabeans are mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament. They seem to come from Arabia.

¹⁶While he was still speaking, another came and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them; I alone have escaped to tell you.”

The servant presumes that God is responsible for the natural disaster even though Satan has been set up as the agent for what is happening.

 ¹⁷While he was still speaking, another came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three columns, made a raid on the camels and carried them off, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; I alone have escaped to tell you.” 

The Chaldeans come from the region of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Both they and the Sabeans are more distant nations to the borders of Israel.

¹⁸While he was still speaking, another came and said, “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, ¹⁹and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped to tell you.”

The status of the children is reiterated at the beginning to set them up as the ultimate tragedy aimed at Job. Note how the events alternate between man-made assaults and ‘natural’ disasters.

²⁰Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. ²¹He said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” ²²In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong-doing.

Tearing his robe and shaving his head, these are signs of mourning in the Bible, that is what Job has undertaken in the light of these disasters. And yet he remains faithful to the Lord, worshiping and blessing the name of the Lord. It may be a very embittered blessing that he offers, but he stands in the Lord, defying Satan’s expectations.

2One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. ²The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”

This opening to the Divine Council parallels the opening to the first council.

 ³The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.” 

Again, God uses the same formula to describe Job. But there is a distinct sense of God saying “I told you so” when he speaks of Satan’s failure to turn Job against the Lord.

⁴Then Satan answered the Lord, “Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives. ⁵But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” ⁶The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life.”

If not the riches, then his health. ‘All that people have they will give to save their lives’. Threaten Job’s life and a curse will be forthcoming. God permits him to threaten, but not to take his life.

⁷So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. ⁸Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes. ⁹Then his wife said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.” 

It is his wife, the other party affected by all that Satan has done to their material possessions and their family, who questions Job’s integrity. Notice how anybody else who might be affected by this divine wager is outside of consideration. The feelings of the wife are not counted in this discussion at all. When restoration comes, Job’s children and his servants are not considered as human beings but just as tokens to count score as everything is given back to Job.

¹⁰But he said to her, “You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

At first glance, this might seem a summary dismissal of his wife as a woman, and therefore foolish. But it is deeper than that. In the book of Proverbs, the foolish woman and the wise woman are contrasted one with another, one leading to and the other from God. She seems to be just another piece of the story that points back to Job. All the things that Satan has done are to draw this curse from Job. It fits the narrative that a human voice would tell him to do so as well. Curse God and die. End it now.

But Job’s words speak to the heart of the book, Shall we receive the good and not receive the bad? Both are from God.

And Job does not sin with his lips. But I cannot help but wonder what thoughts and feelings were running through Job’s mind and heart. Sin would come from the expression of those thoughts and feelings as a curse against God.

Contrast this to what Jesus says in the latter portions of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. It is not just about what the person does, but what they feel. The one who hates their brother is a murderer. The one who looks at another woman with lust in the heart is an adulterer. That is different from Job, where the sin would come from the lips, from the expression of the curse out loud, instead of from within.