Job 2
McGeeCHAPTER 2THEME: Heaven, God, and Satan; land of Uz; down to the dump of the city
Job 2:1
HEAVEN, GOD, AND SATANThe created intelligences make their regular report again. Notice that they all had to report to God. You and I are going to have to report to God some day. Remember that the Christian is going to stand at the judgment seat of Christ (2Co_5:10), and there we are going to report on our stewardship on earth. We are going to give an account to Him. (As believers we will not stand at the Great White Throne judgment of Rev_20:11-15, which is where the unbeliever must give his account.) All the creatures of God must come to make their report to Him. Remember, my friend, He is God. We are not operating freely today. We hear the cry all around us, “We want liberty.” How much liberty do we have? A grasshopper can jump higher than a man can jump, size for size. If we could jump like a grasshopper, we could jump over the tallest building. God created us with certain limitations. We are creatures. He is the Creator. We must all answer to Him. When these sons of God came to present themselves to Him, notice that Satan also had to come to give his report. He is not beyond the jurisdiction of God. Although God already knew what he would report, Satan had to appear before God and tell the Lord what he had been doing.
Job 2:2
In other words, Satan again reports that he has been down in his bailiwick. He was running this place down here. I believe he still runs it, friend. Just look around you and see who runs this world.
Job 2:3
Now this shows us clearly that what the Lord allowed Satan to do with Job was done without a cause in Job. People are always saying, “Why does God let this happen to me?” Perhaps the answer from the Lord is, “There is no reason for it in you. I am not spanking you. I am not punishing you. I just want to bring you closer to Me.” That is what He did with Job. It was without a cause in Job. Sometimes we point our finger at some believer and say that God is whipping him, which may not be true at all. It may be that God is testing him in a way He cannot test you or me, because He couldn’t trust us with that much trouble. Very frankly, I would never want to go through what Job had to suffer! The Lord calls Satan’s attention to Job again. “Job is still serving Me. You said that if I would permit you to take everything away from Job, he would turn his back on Mebut he hasn’t done that. He has maintained his integrity.”
Job 2:4
You know, Satan is accurate about most of us. There is a chink in our armor. We have our Achilles’ heelthat certain weakness. When we get right down to the bare bones, we all cave in. But God has given us a promise: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1Co_10:13). God will never allow us to be tempted beyond what we can stand. We need to recognize that. My friend, wherever you are and whatever you are going through, God is able to sustain you. That is a great comfort. We do not know what a day may bring forth. It could be tragic beyond words or it could be a delightful, wonderful day. Whichever it is, God says, “I will enable you to get through it.” God will see to it that our armor stands up. That is a wonderful thing to know. Satan is a liar. Satan says that Job will give anything for his own body and that if he is allowed to touch Job’s bone and flesh, Job will curse God.
Job 2:7
LAND OF UZThis man is being tested in every part of his life. Satan is attempting to break him down, of course. He has lost his finances, he has lost his family, and now his physical body is being attacked. There is seemingly no human explanation for the troubles of Job. It is not a punishment for his sins, and the whole thing would be senseless without proper insight. That is the reason God gives the explanation to us at the beginning of the book so we will be able to understand. What was happening to Job was for a lofty and worthy purpose. There was a good and sufficient reason in the internal counsels of God. When all the facts were in and all the facets considered, God had a purpose in it. It was discipline. We can say that it was good for Job. When father whips little Willy, he says, “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” Little Willy answers, “Yes, but not in the same place.” This experience was for Job’s ultimate good. Remember that God’s ways are not our ways, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa_55:9). We try to deliver our children from suffering; we do all we can to prevent it. We give them everything we can afford to make life pleasant for them, and we spoil them. We have raised a spoiled generation. A day came when Job realized that something good was coming out of his experience, but at first he did not understand at all. Not only was it for the good of Job, but it was for the glory of God. Remember that God’s character had been impugned by Satan. I think all the created intelligences in heaven shuddered when they heard Satan cast that aspersion on God. His implication was: You’re not worthy to be loved. You have to pay Job to love You and serve You. You have paid lovers. How about it, friend? Are we just timeservers? Are we paid lovers? God is good and God is merciful to us. We rejoice in His goodness. But it is when we are under trial that we reveal our true metal. The fires always burn out the dross, you know, and testing reveals that which is genuine. We are to be lights in this world. Light is for the darkness, and God puts us in the darkness so that our lights will shine. God has not promised an easy life to any of His children. On the contrary, we are told that the way will be rough. If we suffer with Him we will reign with Him. If there is no pain, there will be no pomp. If there is no suffering, no struggle, then there will be no sceptre either. It is difficult for us to bow under the awful hand of Almighty God. This is why Paul wrote, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men …” (2Co_5:11). What kind of trouble did Job have? We are told that he had sore boils and that he scraped himself with a potsherd, that is, a piece of broken pottery. There has been a great deal of speculation among Christian doctors about what Job’s illness might have been. Dr. Cedric Harvey was an English doctor in London who suggested that Job was actually a victim of psychosomatic dermatitis. Now there is a good one for you. The Word of God says he was covered with boils, and this Christian doctor says he had psychosomatic dermatitis. That shows what becoming a doctor can do for you. Psychosomatic dermatitis is a disease of the skin induced by anxiety. Well, I don’t think that is the explanation of it, but the doctor couldn’t be there to diagnose it personally anyway, so I can contradict him. Dr. Harvey has written about this in a medical magazine. He goes on to say that a study of the book points up Job’s insomnia, terrifying dreams, general state of anxiety, all now generally accepted as symptoms of psychosomatic dermatitis. Remember this the next time you have to scratch yourself. At least you will know the name of your disease. Dr. Charles J. Brim, a New York heart specialist, diagnosed Job’s illness as pellagra, a vitamin deficiency disease. Now you can take your choice between these two diagnoses. As a matter of fact, it has even been suggested that he had cancer. I hope you won’t mind if I just say he had boils. Whatever it was, this man was in real trouble. Satan moved in on Job to take away from him all that any man rests upon in dignity in this life. Now we are introduced to his wife. Listen to her!
Job 2:9
Satan wants to get him so beaten down that he doesn’t even want to call himself a man. His wife’s suggestion to curse God and die is strange advice coming from a wife. Apparently she wanted to be a widow. However, it might be a tender suggestion, because she could see the suffering that he was going through. Satan removed everything else that Job had. Why didn’t he remove his wife, too? I think the reason is that his wife wasn’t any help to Job. It would seem that she actually would do the devil’s bidding.
Job 2:10
Job did maintain his integrity. This is now the actual beginning of the book. We have shown how Job has been attacked and how he has maintained his integrity. Now the friends of Job come to visit and “comfort” him. Now his integrity will really be attacked. This is where the dialogue begins.
Job 2:11
DOWN TO THE DUMP OF THE CITYNow we are introduced to the three friends, and we need to get to know them. Eliphaz was a Temanite. Teman was a grandson of Esau according to Gen_36:10-11. Bildad was a Shuhite. Shuah was a son of Abraham according to Gen_25:2. Zophar was a Naamathite. Naamah was in northern Arabia. These facts lead us to place the time of Job at the time of the patriarchs and also give us the general location where Job lived, although we do not know the specific spot. These men came to mourn with Job. Since I am going to say some very ugly things about his friends, I think I ought to say what I can that is good about them. They were real friends to Job until this happened to him. This experience alienated them from Job, and the reason it did was that they did not know God nor did they know why God does certain things. This is a good reason why even today many of us should be very careful about trying to explain why certain things happen to other people. We have no right to say that God has let something happen to So-and-so for such-and-such a reason. We may think it is a good reason, but the problem is that we really don’t know the reason. These friends of Job were just as sure of their reasons as people are today. They thought they knew why certain things happen, but they were entirely wrong. However, note that they were real friends to Job.
Job 2:12
They had heard that their friend Job was in trouble, but they didn’t dream it was as severe as it really was. The last time they had seen Job he was in a beautiful home with his fine sons and daughters around him. They had seen the wealth of Job spread there upon the landscape. Now they had come to visit him. They probably at least expected to find him in his luxurious home, but here they find him out at the dump heap of the town where they emptied the garbage, and he is scraping himself with an old broken piece of pottery. He doesn’t have anything at all. Everything is gone. Poor Job. These friends mourned and wept and howled. For seven days they just sat there and didn’t say a word. They sat with Job for seven days and seven nights! I would say they were friends. As far as they knew how, they tried to comfort him by just sitting there with him for seven days. Although they mourned for him during this full time, they were in no position to comfort him for three reasons: (1) They did not understand God; (2) they did not understand Job; and (3) they did not understand themselves. As they sit for seven days of mourning, Job is under their critical gaze, and they shake their heads in a knowing manner. They are all brilliant men. They are all philosophers, men who do a great deal of thinking. During all those seven days they are thinking, and they all come to one conclusion. They come to it from different angles, but the conclusion is the same: Job must be an awful sinner for these things to happen to him. God must be punishing him. He had better get his life straightened out. This is the conclusion of each of them. Finally Job just can’t stand it any longer. They are beginning to shake their heads in a knowing way with a smirk on their faces. They seem to say, “Aha, brother Job, it finally comes out. You’ve been living in sin, and you gave the impression that you were such a pious individual. Now we know that this has come to you because your sin is out at last.” Well, Job just can’t take that. He can take everything else that has happened to him, but not a false accusation. So the dialogue begins. Job is the first to speak. Listen to the heartbreak of this man in the chapter that follows.