And Jehovah said to Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and abstaineth from evil?
God's opening move in the book of Job is not a disaster but a commendation: He names Job to Satan and praises him. That raises the two questions the whole book turns on. Why does God point out His best man to the enemy? And what does He mean by calling him blameless?
The conversation begins with God, not with the accuser.
Here we learn what could not otherwise be known: it was God, and not Satan, who began the whole transaction. It was God who took notice of His servant Job. His delight in His servant — for He does delight in His saints — is what roused the malice of Satan.
That order shapes everything that follows.
Notice carefully here: the source of all these dealings is not Satan's accusations, but God Himself. God knew what His servant Job needed. He Himself brings forward Job's case and sets everything in motion. If He asks Satan whether he had considered His servant Job, it is because He Himself had. Satan is only an instrument. He is clever, but he does not know that he serves God's purposes of grace. And for Job's good, God lets Satan have his way up to a certain point. The purpose is to bring Job to know his own heart, and so onto deeper ground in his practical relationship with God.
God calls Job "my servant." That title belongs to a short list of men in Scripture.
The term "servant" is often used in Scripture of people commissioned by God to carry out some special duty for Him. Among others it is applied to Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Job, and even to Nebuchadnezzar, the first great head of Gentile rule.
The older translation reads "perfect," and many have misused that word.
Job was not a lopsided man, weak in some qualities and remarkable in others. He had whole-heartedness and integrity. This rested on the fear of God and showed itself in the refusal of evil. The inner and the outer life were right all round. The word "perfect" gives no support at all to the foolish dream that sin in the flesh is wiped out. That is not what "perfect" means in Scripture. It means a spiritually complete character, together with integrity.
Some have read the book as though Job came to God only at the end. God's own words rule that out.
Let the reader clearly understand this. Job was a real saint of God — a soul made alive by God, a possessor of divine and eternal life. We cannot insist on this too strongly. He was just as truly a man of God in the first chapter as he was in the forty-second. If we do not see this, we shall miss one of the great lessons of the book.
There is a further surprise in "none like him on the earth." Job was a Gentile, not a Jew, and still no one matched him.
You can understand that the Jews did not like that. None like Job, a Gentile! According to the story, according to the book, according to the truth — none like him! Yet it was so.
God speaks well of Job in front of the one being who will not.
"Have you considered my servant Job?" asks Jehovah. He takes up for Himself the description of Job already given. God delights in His beloved people and in their righteous ways. If Satan accuses, He will commend. It is always so; judgment is His strange work. He prefers to be occupied with good. "If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise," He thinks on that.
Satan cannot contradict the verdict, so he attacks the reason behind it.
True to his character, Satan can only accuse. He cannot deny Job's righteousness, but he attacks his motives. Having no motive himself but selfishness, he declares that Job is driven by that alone. Why should he not be righteous? Does it not pay?
God praised Job, but where did that goodness come from?
He was the most perfect man on earth, but it was not the goodness of the flesh that made him so — it was God's work in his soul. God commends him when speaking to Satan. The enemy cannot deny his good qualities, so he can only put them down to low motives. But God knew His servant, though the poor servant did not know himself.
- God begins. The trial does not start with Satan spotting Job; it starts with God naming him. The accuser reacts; he never initiates.
- God commends. Where Satan can only accuse, God speaks well of His own — He takes up the description of Job as His own verdict.
- God defines. "Blameless" means integrity and a complete character, rooted in the fear of God. It never meant that sin in the flesh was gone.
- God owns. "My servant" places Job with Abraham, Moses, Joshua and David. And God says "none like him on the earth" of a man who was not even a Jew.
- God aims deeper. Job was already a true saint, but he did not know that his goodness was God's work in him. Satan becomes the ignorant instrument of God's purposes of grace, bringing Job to know his own heart.
And Satan answered Jehovah and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
God has just praised Job, and Satan cannot deny a word of it. So he attacks the reason behind Job's goodness — a charge that lands on God as much as on Job, since it says this fear of God has been bought.
God had described Job's life. Satan says nothing against that description; he goes underneath it.
True to his character, Satan can only accuse. He cannot deny Job's righteousness, but attacks his motives. Having no motive himself but selfishness, he declares that Job is driven only by that. Why should he not be righteous? Does it not pay? He is prosperous, blessed in every way, and God lets nothing come near him to hurt him.
Where does such a reading of another man come from? One writer answers that Satan judged Job by himself, and draws a warning from it.
"Then Satan answered the LORD and said, 'Does Job fear God for no reason?'" It is nothing but selfishness; it is only for his own ends. How did he judge that? From himself. It is a dangerous thing to judge anything from ourselves. It is a blessed thing to judge from God's word.
The words about the hedge are not simply an observation about Job's comfortable life. They are a challenge to the fairness of God's own assessment.
God has pronounced. Is that not enough? Sadly, sin has brought in distrust of God Himself. He too is on trial, and Satan's reasoning in Job's case almost openly takes that ground. God pronounces about Job, and Satan takes exception to it. "Have You not made a hedge about him, and about his house?" he says. He means: "This sentence is not given upon proper trial." Man, to his own ruin, has accepted Satan's malice as truth. Yet God, in His very mercy to man, does not retreat behind His privilege. He is, and must be, sovereign in what He does, so that "none can stay His hand, or say to Him, What are You doing?" Even so, He will allow the question, and let everything come into the fullest light.
The accusation contains an unintended confession. In naming the protection, the adversary admits it had held.
Satan, the adversary, had watched Job for a long time, and Job's God-fearing, upright life clearly annoyed him. If he could have destroyed him he would have done it. But he had to admit that God had put a hedge around him, and he could not break it down or climb over it.
Even when God opens the hedge, He sets how wide the opening is.
The thought of this is very solemn. It should lead us to walk humbly and watchfully through a scene where Satan rules. Satan has no power at all over a soul who stays in the place of dependence and obedience. And, blessed be God, he can never go one hair's breadth beyond the limit God sets.
The question is not only about Job. It is a charge against anyone who claims to fear God.
Satan's vile suggestion is that no such thing as godliness exists. If a man claims to be godly, it is not that he fears God, or cares for God. It is simply that he knows it pays and is to his worldly advantage. Satan says to God, "Stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse You to Your face." The Lord allows this horrible lie of the devil to be fully exposed. He lets Satan strip Job of all that he has, and the outcome proves Satan a liar. Instead of cursing God, Job fell down before the LORD and worshipped, saying, "The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."
The charge was a lie about Job. Yet one writer warns that it can be partly true of us.
The gifts become a snare to us, and Satan's charge against us is often true in a measure. Our ground for rest and quietness of spirit before God is His kindness and mercies to us, and not simply the knowledge of His love. You can see this in the violent grief and despair many of His people fall into when God takes away any particular mercy. They had rested in the gift more than in God. The gift was to them the evidence of His love; the love itself was not the rest of the heart.
- Charge. Satan cannot deny that Job is upright, so he attacks Job's motive — a motive he reads out of himself.
- Hedge. The words that accuse Job also admit that God's hedge had held. Satan could not break it down or climb over it.
- Limit. When God opens the hedge, He sets the width. Satan cannot go one hair's breadth beyond what God commands.
- Trial. God does not hide His verdict behind His power. He allows the question and brings everything into full light.
- Answer. Job lost everything and worshipped. The man who blessed the God who took away exposed the lie that godliness is only a paying arrangement.