Job 2:6

In Job's case we see Satan using many means to bring extraordinary affliction on Job, and always under God's permission. Even here Satan is strictly limited. In the first trial he may not touch Job himself (ch. 1:12). At the second trial he may afflict Job's body, but he may not touch his life (2:6). So it is a mistake to credit Satan with absolute power to do as he likes.

He had long wanted to crush Job, but he had to admit that God had "put a hedge around him … on every side." He could not reach him until God made a gap in the hedge and let him go so far. He went as far as God allowed, and brought almost unspeakable suffering on Job. But his power had a limit.

And the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, he is in your hand; only spare [literally, abstain from] his life." God held Job's life back from Satan, but not to lessen the trial. He did it so that He might triumph for the good of the afflicted man — and that is the moral of the book.

We may be sure that divine love, as well as divine wisdom, brought this afflicted child of God under fresh attacks from Satan. We see the tenderness in the words, "spare his life." The enemy is to do everything he can, and so prove his own charge false. On the other hand, through the very trials he must face, Job will learn the lesson of all lessons, for all eternity: that God is all in all. As a step to that knowledge, he will see that he is nothing.

God gave Satan permission to do as he pleased with Job's body, while sparing his life (v. 6). It may seem heartless of God to give such permission. But God's pure love was in it, in a way that unbelief cannot understand, and in the end it worked for greater blessing. Satan, though, did show himself heartless, for all he wanted was Job's downfall.

And God tells Satan, "Behold, he is in your hand." What proof that Satan can do nothing against the saints of God without His permission! What a comfort this is! Satan is under God's complete control. And if God permits him to do his evil work, God has His own wise design in it. God's own love and power are on the side of His afflicted people. His own gracious faithfulness will show itself in the trial. But there is a gracious restriction. The Lord said, "Only spare his life." Satan might sift Job, but he could not touch his life, for the lives of God's people are in the hand of the Lord.

Satan might test Job, but God set a limit: "Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life." (Job 2:6.) Here there is no such limit. They were to be "faithful unto death." God promises them no rescue on this side of the grave. And why? Because a believer now knows Christ not only as able to save from death, but as having triumphed over death. … The death of the body is only a door leading into Christ's presence.

So I get this fact: everything Satan did against Job failed. The one thing it did was clear Job of Satan's accusation and the charge of hypocrisy. Satan did all he could do, but he could do no more than God allowed.