The patience of Job-why is Job famous for being patient?

You know Job's remarkable history. The beginning of it shows that he was overwhelmed with sorrow; all his possessions were torn from him in a day, with the loss of his family also. Yet Satan had to own, and all the angels of heaven, that Job in the face of this flood of calamities exhibited a patience that was marvellous. It is written, "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." And the patience of Job has passed into a proverb for all time.

Who else would have stood, like Job, unmoved, staunch, amid such fiery trials? The most cherished objects of his heart were snatched from him, he himself became a mass of festering sores, but Job meekly bowed his head before God. The wife of his bosom had no more to say to him than to tell him to curse God and die. He had not a friend in the world. for what sort of friends were those three who came in their critical fashion, sitting before him in silence until they accused him of secret sin?

The storm has burst in all its fury; how does the sufferer act beneath it? Not a murmur escapes his lips at the loss of his property; and when the climax is reached, he meets it in the dignity of a man of faith, yet with a tender, broken heart. Rent mantle and shorn head are the marks of a mourner. He acknowledges that nothing was his by right; he had come into the world naked, and would leave it as he came. "We brought nothing, into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out" (1 Tim. 6:7). But he turns from the stroke to the Hand that gave it. He looks past all second causes, whether human or miraculous, and lays his sorrow at the Lord's feet. "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

So Satan has utterly failed thus far. His object had been to drive Job from God; he had only drawn him to Him. This proves the reality of Job's faith.

We have "heard of the patience of Job." It has indeed become proverbial. It is not likely that in all the history of the world before or since has such a combination of disasters fallen upon one man in one day. The various happenings were as co-ordinated as to rule out all idea of chance and make it manifest that they were directed from the unseen world. Job's friends felt this and so did Job, yet he endured and gave God time to work out His seemingly dark design to its bright conclusion.

Our patience may be very small compared with Job's. We indeed may hardly have had the patience to read through the forty-two chapters of his book, while he had the patience to endure the sufferings and trials which those chapters record! The Apostle James said to his fellow-believers, "Ye … have seen the end of the Lord." We may well ask ourselves if we have seen it. It is still worth seeing. It will strengthen our feeble patience if we observe it. Let us read Job 42 with that object in view.

We are anxious that the reader should distinctly seize this point. It is, to a very great extent, the key to the entire book of Job. The Divine object was to expose to Job's view the depths of his own heart, in order that he might learn to delight in the grace and mercy of God and not in his own goodness, which was as 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 therefore unprepared for "the end of the Lord" — that blessed end for every contrite heart — that end which is marked by "pity and tender mercy." God, blessed and praised be His name! will not suffer Satan to accuse us; but He will expose us to ourselves, so that we may judge ourselves, and thus learn to mistrust our own hearts, and rest in the eternal stability of his grace.

Thus far, then, we see Job "holding fast his integrity." He meets with calmness all the heavy afflictions which Satan is allowed to bring upon him; and, moreover, he refuses the foolish counsel of his wife. In a word, he accepts all as from the hand of God, and bows his head in the presence of His mysterious dispensations.

Job was evidently a man of fine perceptions and deep emotions. All the more then must he have suffered from the blows that Satan was allowed to deliver. But no word of murmuring escaped his lips. The temptation only brought to light his perfect submission to God's will. Even whilst suffering the greatest bodily tortures and when his wife spoke as "one of the foolish women" he still uttered words of wisdom and devotion, which have since then instructed and comforted many a soul. Although not understanding why all this calamity came over him, he yet held fast the assurance that God had permitted it, and that it would work together for good. He had received good from God's hand should he not also receive evil?

So Satan goes forth, "and smote Job with sore boils [the collective singular, a grievous sore] from the sole of his foot to his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes. Then said his wife to him" — it was a great aggravation of his suffering that she should fall, yet not Job; but she who ought to have been a helpmeet to him was wearied of the strain, and says in her bitterness — "Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse [lit. bless] God, and die." It was a frightful speech, but through Satan's instigation wrung out of her, and as undoubtedly through her lack of looking up to God. Indeed we do not know what or who Job's wife was; it forms no particular part of that which God brings before us; it is her one appearance in the history of the book. "But he said to her, Thou speakest as one" — for even here we find a wonderful measure of patience in his words. He does not say, "Thou speakest as a foolish woman;" he goes no further than, "Thou speakest as one of the foolish ones." It is well known that the word "foolish" has a morally bad sense in Scripture. It is no question of feeble intellect, but of that worst moral depravity, which blots out God, and so makes nothing of His word. Ill as she had spoken, he does not charge her with this; but simply that she spoke like such. "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." Satan had no resource more. Job owned God's title to take all he had, and smite himself from head to foot. It was evident that Job served God at all cost.

What must have been his perplexity, his bewilderment as he sat in his misery? His was a living death! And he knew not the cause of it, and was silent, until his wife came to him, and through her Satan made his last and most subtle attack upon him. Said she, "Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die." It was a foul blow, and just like the devil, but it opened Job's mouth and made him give a triumphant answer, even if he did not understand its full meaning. "What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" Curse God! That would have meant giving up his God. Could he do that? Never. He could lose everything, but not his God. Many things may have seemed indispensable to him in former days, but he had come to this point in his experience now; he could do without everything but God. God alone was indispensable to Job, so that he cried out later in his agony yet earnestness of soul, "Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him."

Real happiness is not found in having everything favorable, but in enduring tribulation patiently. And the patience of Job to commended to us as an example. This was not primarily suffering from men, but from circumstances of adversity, though men added to it, some who despised him simply because he was down, others (his friends) who accused him unjustly. Job's patience at first was more commendable than later on, when he bitterly complained; yet he did endure until God showed to him what was "the end of the Lord," that is, the object the Lord had in mind in allowing all his affliction. The end proved that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. So it will prove in every cases

And how did it affect Job? Very few converted men now would act as Job did then. "Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground and worshipped." Now he was a most affectionate man, and he was a man full of graciousness even to strangers. What was it for him to lose all, not merely his property, but every soul of the family, outside his own house? And he said "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: Jehovah gave, and Jehovah has taken away, blessed be the name of Jehovah." You cannot conceive a more happy and decided expression of entire godliness from a deeply tried soul. "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly," that is, in a way that was contrary to all propriety.

Job, after those heavy afflictions, which are set before us in the first chapter, the loss of his substance and of his family, rends his mantle, it is true (chap. 1:20); he did not sin in that, the word tells us. His grief was lawful, he was permitted to grieve for the loss of his children; but he arises and worships before God. He can worship Him, because his will is broken, and he can say, "Jehovah gave and Jehovah hath taken away blessed be the name of Jehovah."