TEXT [Commentary]

black diamond   B.   The First Test (1:6-22)

1.   The challenge in heaven (1:6-12)

6 One day the members of the heavenly court[*] came to present themselves before the LORD, and the Accuser, Satan,[*] came with them. 7 “Where have you come from?” the LORD asked Satan.

Satan answered the LORD, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.”

8 Then the LORD asked Satan, “Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless—a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil.”

9 Satan replied to the LORD, “Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God. 10 You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is! 11 But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!”

12 “All right, you may test him,” the LORD said to Satan. “Do whatever you want with everything he possesses, but don’t harm him physically.” So Satan left the LORD’s presence.

NOTES

1:6 the members of the heavenly court. As indicated by the NLT mg, the lit. expression is “sons of God”; it is used to describe a royal council in which a king is surrounded by his courtiers (cf. 15:8; Ps 29:1; Isa 6:1-8). The Heb. idiom “sons of” indicates a group belonging to their “father” as their leader (cf. the “father” of a band of prophets in 1 Sam 10:12).

the Accuser, Satan. The Heb. word satan [TH7854, ZH8477], in this context, is not the devil but the Accuser. That old serpent, the devil, is given the name Satan in the New Testament (Rev 12:9). It is important to be aware of how the usage of the word develops in the Heb. Scriptures. In Job and Zechariah, a member of the divine court appears in the role of “the accuser.” The meaning of the term is evident in the Zechariah passage (Zech 3:1) where the noun and verb occur together: the accuser (hasatan) was standing at the right hand of Joshua (the priest) to accuse him (lesitno [TH7853, ZH8476]). The term does come to be used as a proper name for the devil in later Hebrew, and it is probably used that way in Chronicles: Satan stood against Israel and tempted David to number Israel (1 Chr 21:1). Satan, however, does not appear in the Samuel account (2 Sam 24:1). It is notable that the Heb. word satan never refers to a tempter in the heavenly realms in the kingdom period (Samuel) but does in the postexilic period (Chronicles). When it does refer to such a tempter in the later writings, it is always in terms of a specific test that God allows or initiates, a function quite unlike that of the devil in the New Testament. Should we think of the devil as being a member of the divine assembly as the satan (the Accuser) is introduced in Job and Zechariah? John, in Revelation, does speak of the devil as being cast out of heaven at the triumph of Jesus (Rev 12:5-9), suggesting that the role of the devil did change with the work of Christ. In Job it may be the devil that stands before God as part of the divine council; but if so, in this passage he does not have the role of an angel of light seeking to deceive, as we find him in the New Testament. Rather, his task here is to call God’s attention to a situation that ought to be tested. He accuses Job of serving God only because God has blessed Job.

1:10 You have made him prosper. The Heb. has the word “bless” (barak [TH1288A, ZH1385]), the usual way of speaking of prosperity. The common meaning in this verse is subtly used in contrast to the opposite meaning of the same verb in verse 11, where it is translated “he will surely curse you to your face.” This accentuates the accusation: God’s blessing of Job is in reality a bribe to get a blessing from Job; if God removes his blessing, the blessing Job returns will be the opposite as well.

COMMENTARY [Text]

The narrator shifts the scene to the assembly of the heavenly council, where God is pictured as a king surrounded by his courtiers receiving reports, taking counsel, and dispensing orders. The heavenly sphere is depicted entirely in terms of the earthly human experience of authoritative persons taking counsel and devolving functions. The Accuser is a member of the divine court; his role in the council is specific, so the question about Job’s integrity is directed immediately to him. The point of the narrator in introducing the reader to this heavenly scene is not to suggest that God is less than fully aware of Job’s sincerity or how he will respond. Rather, God was able to make his declaration about Job without hesitation because he knew Job. There could, however, have been doubt about Job’s integrity both in the heavenly realm and in the earthly, even in the mind of Job himself. In the heavenly court, it was the function of the Accuser to remove all such doubt.

The Accuser pointed out that God’s blessing upon Job’s life cast doubt on Job’s motives for so conscientiously blessing God. God’s blessing (barak) had the effect of a hedge around Job’s life so he could suffer no harm (1:10; sakta ba‘ado [TH7753/1157, ZH8455/1237]). So long as the hedge God placed around Job kept difficulty away, there was no question about Job’s response to God. However, should God remove that hedge, Job would then “bless” God in quite the opposite manner, the Accuser explained. In verse 11, the verb barak must be meant in the sense of curse, just as it is when king Ahab incited two malevolent individuals to incriminate Naboth by insisting that he had “blessed” God and the king (1 Kgs 21:10, 13). God agreed to remove the hedge from around Job and gave the Accuser license to remove Job’s blessings. The Accuser’s question in 1:11 then becomes acute: what kind of blessing would God now receive from Job? The hedge of God’s blessing is an uncertain kind of providence; it may be wealth or loss. In turn, Job’s blessing of God is an uncertain kind of praise. Job may say, “The LORD gave me what I had, and the LORD has taken it away. Praise the name of the LORD!” (1:21); or he may say, “Why give light to those in misery, and life to those who are bitter?” (3:20). The challenge of the Accuser concerning the life of Job defies the usual assumptions about God’s protection and his blessing. It also calls into question the sense in which those who suffer will bless God. The motives for piety come under scrutiny as the usual axioms of reward and punishment are altered.

As expressed by Clines, the prologue “is a beguilement of the reader, a strategy that, if it seduces naive readers into finding a reflection of their own shallowness in the text, equally entrances more perceptive readers into an exploratory journey into its depths” (1985:127-128). The introduction of the Accuser and the antiphrastic use of the word “bless” contribute to both the beguilement and the entrancement. The Accuser serves to remind naive readers that they cannot trust their own judgment of themselves. The use of the word “bless” causes the more perceptive to reflect on their own motives and how their words and actions may be perceived by God (cf. 1:5).