Job 2:1

Taken in the sense of derivation by creation, "son" is elsewhere applied to the angels (Job 2:1; Job 38:7). God made them intelligent beings and "ministering spirits," appointed to serve heaven (Ps. 103:20). Because of that origin, as a class they are called the sons of God, Who "is a Spirit." … The angels are sons because of the standing and work God gave them as created spirits in the plan of creation. As sons to a father, they owe their intelligent existence to God, as creatures to the Creator.

From this passage we may gather that at certain times all heaven's inhabitants, good and evil, must assemble before the Lord. … Satan means "adversary." The last book of the Bible shows him in this same character, as the accuser of the brothers. According to Revelation 12 he is still at work as he was in the days of Job. He still has access to the throne of God. That lasts until the hour when his downfall begins and he is thrown out of heaven.

The sons of God here appear to be unfallen angels, for fallen angels are not sons of God. Satan came among them, though not one of them.

Much of the profit this book reveals depends on one fact. Heaven alone knew both God's estimate of Job and Satan's trial of him. The reason for the trial stayed a secret for the present — a secret not there, but here. Neither Job nor his friends knew anything of what God had said about him. Satan knew well, but he could not imagine unselfish suffering integrity.

With Job we see Satan, by God's permission, using various means to afflict him terribly. But even here Satan is strictly limited. He may not touch Job himself (ch. 1:12). Then at the second trial, when allowed to afflict Job's body, he may not touch his life (2:6). It is a mistake, therefore, to credit Satan with absolute power to do as he wants.

Again Satan presents himself before God as at the first. Again the Lord asks about Job, still faithful despite the afflictions he had been through. Satan failed to move Job, but he is not put off. He makes fresh demands, along with fresh accusations.

Someone has said that if the Lord had eased His hand when the first trial ended, Job would have fallen short of the blessing. There was a respite, and it might have been thought that everything had ended. But God's purpose in grace was not yet reached, and we may be sure that Satan's malice was not yet satisfied. The tireless adversary begins again, the Lord gives him room again, and Job is visited a second time.

God's object was to show Job the depths of his own heart. Then he would learn to delight in the grace and mercy of God, and not in his own goodness. That goodness was like a morning cloud and the early dew that passes away. Job was a true saint of God, and all Satan's accusations were flung back in his face. But all the while Job was unbroken material, and so unprepared for "the end of the Lord."