Job 2King James Version
A second scene in heaven. Satan says Job would curse God if his own body were struck. God allows that too. Job is covered from head to foot with painful boils. He sits in ashes and scrapes himself with a piece of broken pottery. His wife says, 'Curse God, and die.' Job answers, 'Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?' Three friends come to mourn with him. They sit with him in silence for seven days and seven nights because they see his grief is very great.
Satan appears before God again. God points to Job's integrity despite the first round of loss. Satan claims Job would curse God if his body were struck. God permits a second test: physical suffering, but not death. Satan afflicts Job with painful boils from head to foot. Job sits in ashes, scraping himself with a potsherd. His wife tells him to curse God and die. Job rebukes her. Three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, arrive and sit with Job in silence for seven days.
When the first wave of loss does not break a man's faith, the adversary goes after his body, and Job's own wife becomes the voice urging him to surrender.
10: "What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" Job holds his theology together while his body is failing and his wife is urging him toward despair.
Job sits among ashes, which in the ancient Near East was a site of mourning and self-abasement, sometimes at the edge of a town. He uses a piece of broken pottery to scrape the sores on his skin. The three friends see him from a distance and do not recognize him. That detail matters: the man they knew and the man sitting in the ashes are barely the same person.
God, who again defends Job's integrity. Satan, who escalates the test to physical suffering. Job, now afflicted in body but still refusing to sin with his lips. Job's wife, whose one line of dialogue is a cry of exhausted grief, not malice. Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, who come to mourn and comfort and sit silent for seven days.
The friends' seven days of silence is one of the most pastorally significant moments in the book. They tear their robes, throw dust in the air, and simply sit. No speeches, no diagnoses, no advice. This is the best thing they do in the entire book. Everything that follows when they open their mouths will be worse.
For when the suffering will not stop and the person closest to you is telling you to give up on God. Job's wife is not villainous; she has lost her children too. Her words come from a place past endurance, and Job still holds.
1Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.
2And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
3And 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? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.
4And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
5But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
6And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.
7So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.
8And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.
9Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.
10But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.
11Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.
12And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.
13So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.