*Job 2: 1-13
After God allows it, Satan afflicts Job with painful sores to further test his faith.
- Second Heavenly Encounter:
- Satan appears again before the Lord among the heavenly beings, and the Lord asks him if he has considered His servant Job, who remains faithful despite the afflictions brought upon him.
- Satan argues that Job’s loyalty is only because he still has his health, and he challenges the Lord to allow him to afflict Job’s body, believing that Job will surely curse God to His face.
- Permission to Afflict Job:
- The Lord grants Satan permission to test Job further, allowing him to afflict Job’s body but sparing his life.
- Satan strikes Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, causing him immense physical agony and discomfort.
- Job’s Response to Affliction:
- Job sits among the ashes, scraping his sores with broken pottery, experiencing intense suffering and misery.
- His wife urges him to curse God and die, but Job rebukes her, recognizing that they should accept both good and adversity from the hand of God.
- Arrival of Job’s Friends:
- Three of Job’s friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—hear of Job’s afflictions and travel from their homes to comfort and console him.
- When they see Job’s distress, they are so overcome with grief that they weep aloud, tearing their robes and sprinkling dust on their heads in a sign of mourning.
- Seven Days of Silence:
- Job’s friends sit with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, not speaking a word, as they witness the extent of his suffering and share in his grief.
- They show their solidarity and support for Job in his time of distress by silently mourning alongside him, offering him their presence and companionship in his hour of need.
Chapters 3 to 37 are a central part of the book, where Job, a righteous man, suffers immense loss and pain. Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, visit him to offer comfort, but they end up engaging in a series of debates about the nature of suffering and God’s justice. Job passionately defends his innocence and laments his situation, while his friends argue that suffering must be a result of sin. However, Job maintains his integrity and seeks answers from God. The dialogue between Job and his friends is one of the most compelling and philosophically rich passages in religious literature.
Job 2:1-13 teaches us how to respond to suffering—with faith and compassion. Job faced even more pain, yet he refused to turn against God. His friends came to comfort him, but at first, they simply sat with him in silence, showing that sometimes just being there for someone is the best support. This reminds us to trust God in hard times and to be kind, patient friends to those who are hurting. Instead of offering quick answers, we can show love by listening and standing with others in their struggles.
Job 2: 1-13 (WEB)
2:1 Again, on the day when God’s sons came to present themselves before the LORD, Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD. 2 The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”Satan answered the LORD, and said, “From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”3 The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil. He still maintains his integrity, although you incited me against him, to ruin him without cause.”4 Satan answered the LORD, and said, “Skin for skin. Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. 5 But stretch out your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face.”6 The LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life.”7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful sores from the sole of his foot to his head. 8 He took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself with, and he sat among the ashes. 9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still maintain your integrity? Renounce God, and die.”10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?”In all this Job didn’t sin with his lips. 11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him. 12 When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky. 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.