Bible Commentaries

II.

(1) And Satan came also.—See Job 1:7. St. Peter applies to Satan the verb from which we have peripatetic.

(4) Skin for skin.—This is a more extreme form of the insinuation of Job 1:9. He means Job takes care to have his quid pro quo; and if the worst come to the worst, a man will give up everything to save his life. If, therefore, Job can save his life at the price of subservience to God, he will willingly pay that price rather than die; but his service is worth no more than that selfish object implies.

(6) But save his life.—God’s faithfulness cannot fail even if, as Satan hints, Job’s should do so (2 Timothy 2:13). There was one who cared for Job’s life more than he cared for it himself.

(7) Sore boils.—Supposed to be Elephantiasis, an extreme form of leprosy, in which the skin becomes clotted and hard like an elephant’s, with painful cracks and sores underneath.

(9) Then said his wife.—Thus it is that a man’s foes are they of his own household (Micah 7:6; Matthew 10:36, &c.). The worst trial of all is when those nearest to us, instead of strengthening our hand in God and confirming our faith, conspire to destroy it.

(10) Shall we receive good . . .?—The words were fuller than even Job thought; for merely to receive evil as from God’s hands is to transmute its character altogether, for then even calamities become blessings in disguise. What Job meant was that we are bound to expect evil as well as good from God’s hands by a sort of compensation and even-handed justice, but what his words may mean is a far more blessed truth than this. There is a sublime contrast between the temptation of Job and the temptation of Christ (Matthew 26:39-42, &c.). (Comp. Hebrews 5:8.) This was the lesson Job was learning.

(11) Eliphaz the Temanite.—Teman was the son of Eliphaz, the son of Esau, to whose family this Eliphaz is probably to be referred (Genesis 36:4; Genesis 36:10-11). If so, this may roughly indicate the date of the book. The inhabitants of Teman, which lay north-east of Edom, were famed for their wisdom (Jeremiah 47:7).

Bildad the Shuhite probably derived his origin from Shuah, the son of Abraham by Keturah (Genesis 25:2). Of the district from which Zophar the Naamathite came nothing is known. It probably derived its name from a Naamah or Naaman, of which there were several (e.g., Genesis 4:22; 1 Kings 14:21; Genesis 46:21; Numbers 26:40; 2 Kings 5:1), as names of persons or places called after them.

(13) So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days.—Compare the conduct of David (2 Samuel 12:16), and see also Genesis 1:10; 1 Samuel 31:13; Ezekiel 3:15. There is a colossal grandeur about this description which is in keeping with the majesty and hoary antiquity of the poem.