Bible Commentaries

Again the solemn council met, and again Satan was present. The Most High uttered the same estimate of His servant as before, adding thereto a declaration of Job's victory in the conflict which had taken place. The adversary declared that the limits which God had set had hindered him in the accomplishment of his purpose. Though Job had triumphed over his loss of possession, he was not therefore proven loyal to God. The essential greatness of the man was unimpaired in that his own life had not been touched by weakness. Let him but feel there, and renunciation of God would immediately ensue. It is the devil's perpetual estimate of humanity that flesh is supreme. Once again he was permitted to prove his slander, but again the divine limit was set to the sphere of his operation.

The enemy went forth on his terrible work, and immediately we are presented with the awful picture of the man of God weakened in his personality by the unutterable misery of physical affliction. To this was now added the new and subtle attack of the sympathy of his wife. Her love, utterly misguided it is true, counseled that he die by renouncing God. His answer was characterized by tenderness toward her, and yet by unswerving loyalty to God.

Here the adversary passes out of sight. He has done his dire and dreadful work. His slander is manifestly a lie. The darkest days of all for Job now began. There is a stimulus in the clash of catastrophe. The very shock and surprise of the strokes create strength in which men triumph. It is in the brooding silence which enwraps the soul afterward that the fiercest fight is waged. To that the patriarch now passed. These verses tell the story of the coming of his friends. There were only three of them, joined presently, perchance, by another, when Elihu came on the scene. While it is true that Job suffered more at the hands of these friends ultimately than by the attacks of the foe, yet some recognition must be made of the goodness of the men. They were admirable, first, because they came at all. Even more were they to be admired because they sat in silence with him for seven days and nights. In overwhelming sorrows, true friendship almost invariably demonstrates itself more perfectly by silence than by speech. And even in spite of the fact that Job's friends caused him sorrow by their words, they are more to be admired because what they thought concerning him they dared to say to him, rather than about him to others.