NoteS on the Book of Job.
This is the first poetic book generally regarded as being outside the Mosaic covenant and part of the Wisdom Literature. Not all books in that category made it into the canon of holy writ. The book was written by an unknown author, who has been either dated as in the time of David, or much earlier in the primeval period of biblical history. Its outspoken theme of God being seemingly tempted by His arch foe Satan, is unprecedented and unrepeated in any of the ensuing poetic books or other divisions of the Bible.
Puzzling conundrums in the book of Job are:-
1. The ability of Lucifer to gate-crash the assembly of the saints meeting to worship.
2. The willingness of God to discuss His people with the devil.
3. The enigma of Job’s victimization.
4. Satan’s provocations of his creator.
5. God first provoking Satan to test the validity of Job’s upright motives
6. God then accepting Satan’s ploy to destroy Job’s, property, and lives of his servants and his ten children.
These controversies are unprecedented in Scripture. They do compare with much of another Wisdom Book: Ecclesiastes where the lapsed Solomon offers sceptical philosophic questions so atypical of the rest of Scripture and in direct challenge to his father’s wisdom in the Psalms recommended by Christ in Luke 24. We must also keep in mind that quite a number of Wisdom manuscripts were found unacceptable to include in the canon of sixty six books when compiled, and placed instead in the Apocrypha, which appear in Roman and liberal editions of the Bible that reject the scholarship of Erasmus and the Puritan Reformers.
The book of Job, however, makes neither God a victim of temptation, nor the righteous exposed to the unpredictable malice of Satan. The book does, nevertheless, reveal how God will provoke Satan to carry out the Lord’s divine sovereign purpose. Tragedy, bereavement, and illness were used to show future posterity down through the ages the purpose of suffering and how God’s refining fire is for the greater glory of the kingdom. Though servants and children perished, we do not read that they were righteous. The seven sons and three daughters were excessive lovers of pleasure, revelry and wine day after day. They were lost before calamity took them. They godlessly refused to walk in the upright steps of their father, Job. Drunken debauchery is strongly condemned in Scripture.
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CHAPTER ONE OF JOB from the King James Version of the Bible 1611 (Public Domain).
Righteous Job made a divine example of saints’ patience in suffering.
1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
2 And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.
3 His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.
4 And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.
A holy remnant of Jehovah’s followers gather to worship.
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
7 And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
God provokes Satan to react with malice towards Job.
8 And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
Lucifer impugns a selfish motive to Job’s righteousness.
9 Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
The Lord, for His own purpose, allows Satan to bring calamity.
12 And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.
13 And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:
God gives Satan freedom to ruin material wealth and property.
14 And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them:
15 And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
16 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
17 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
18 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house:
God gives Satan freedom to use nature’s violence for His purpose.
19 And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.
20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,
21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
Notes, headings, sub headings and foreword by John David.
Job 1: from the King James Version Bible 1611 (Public Domain-ex biblegateway.com)
