Why did Job's wife tell him to curse God and die?

Verses 9-10. Then his wife makes her only appearing in this drama. She is seen but once and only once she speaks. She must have followed him with weeping and wailing outside to the ash-heap. And now she speaks, but not of herself. Satan uses her as his instrument. He speaks through her. "Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Renounce God and die." That is exactly what Satan had spoken in God's presence, that Job would do this very thing. And now he uses the woman to suggest suicide to Job.

But noble is the answer of the afflicted saint of God. He detects in her language impiety--"thou speaketh as one of the impious (this is the meaning of foolish) women speaketh." Only those who do not know God can speak as you have spoken, is the meaning of his rebuke. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? The power of God it was which produced such wonderful submission. His grace enabled him to pass through it all without sinning. What a record! "in all this did not Job sin with his lips!" Satan's defeat is complete. His mouth is stopped. If he appears again before Jehovah he must stand in silence; the last word does not belong to him, but to God. And so is coming the day when Satan's defeat is complete, when he will be completely bruised under the feet of God's people.

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.

We will not dogmatize about Job's wife. The root of the matter may have been in her, and she may have been only for a time overwhelmed by her grief. But her words are very evil: "Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God, and die." It has been thought that her love to Job prompted these words; that she could not endure seeing one so dear to her suffering such torture, and practically counseled suicide. We can leave her case with Him who searcheth the heart, and seek to get the benefit of Job's noble reply: "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?" She was associating herself with the profane who despise God. She had been quite willing to enjoy good things at the hand of God; now that He sees fit to send trial, shall we refuse to take it as meant for good? It was God who was the giver in each case.

It is then that Satan brings up his heavy artillery. The first heavy blow that the adversary now aims at Job, is through the words of his astonished and irritated wife. She said, 'Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God, and die'. How very striking is Job's reply. He, no doubt, saw the distress of his wife at his own affliction; and, taking the brightest side, he gave her credit for meaning better than her words implied and so he said unto her, 'Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh'. He does not say, What a fool thou art. But, speakest as one. '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'.

The wife is the first to break down completely. As "the weaker vessel" this is not surprising, for the husband should ever be the leader in faith and love, as in the responsibilities which he cannot transfer to another. But there is something more than the outward collapse of faith; there seems to be a spirit of apostasy which had listened to the lie of Satan. As the woman of old was beguiled by the attractiveness of Satan's snare, so she seems to have fallen before the apparent hopelessness of Job's contending against a "sea of troubles."

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.”

It is to be noted that at first a great accumulation of afflictions are better borne than afterwards. The strength that is in the heart, the confidence in God, is the resource where the crash is sudden and terrific; and in the rapidity with which Satan used his power, it appears to me he outwitted himself, for certainly sufferings with an interval between them are more trying. Satan, however, hoped that the crash would be so overwhelming, that Job could not but reproach God for the calamity. But extreme difficulty always calls out the latent strength, as with a drowning man; where a lesser difficulty would not. The trial is not sufficient at times to rouse one to effort. It is when the effort has been drawn out by extreme difficulty and has proved unavailing, that real helplessness is felt, and the cloud of despair invests the soul. Job had borne his troubles so well that the gracious God is able again to challenge Satan as to his estimate of His servant. Satan retorts, "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life, but put forth thine hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face." Of course, it fills the cup of misery, if besides being deprived of everything my heart clings to, and the whole scene once so lovely and pleasing to me now a waste — with but tombs of my former enjoyments; if besides this, I have become by bodily infliction a burden to myself! Surely bodily suffering and disease would in such a case be the bitterest way of reminding me of my utter desolation without heart or power to retrieve my condition. God permits Satan to afflict Job with the most grievous bodily suffering; he is smitten with sore boils from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. How complete his misery! his wife is overwhelmed, and in her distress falls into Satan's snare, and counsels her husband to curse God and die. Thus everything is against Job. What a moment of exercise to his soul! How he must have wrought within himself as to hope in God! But every exercise, though the sufferer at the time little knows it, is strengthening the soul in God. The deeper the distress, the deeper the sense of His grace in relieving it; the one only makes a good rooting ground for the other.

Job bears up wonderfully at first. He rebukes his wife, saying, "What, shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" But he is further tested. His friends come to mourn with and comfort him. If I am passing through discipline from God, which my most intimate friends or relatives do not understand, their intimacy and offers of help and comfort disturb and injure me rather than the reverse. This Job had to encounter from his wife, on one side, and his three friends, on the other; one on the ground of nature, the other on the ground of superior intelligence. What a scene it was! "When the friends 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 on their heads toward heaven. So 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."

To all these, Job answers that neither in the past nor the present was there the smallest known departure from his duty; and as to the future, he had not the slightest intention to move from the orbit appointed for him by God's will. At his wife's suggestion he might have cursed God and died, and so ended his misery, which she felt to be insupportable. But he felt it was a poor thing to give God a bad name; for although he knew Him but dimly, he knew Him too well to do that. All the past when recalled could be considered with a good conscience in the fear of God; in the present, although he was so crossed and burdened and suffering, he was sure God would explain everything satisfactorily if only he knew where to find Him; as to the future, far from being diverted from piety by any calamities undergone, or by any lust of sin or gain — he was determined that even if God slew him, yet he would trust in Him.

Again we are in heaven and the same scene is before us. Satan, defeated in his first attempt, demands that the Lord touch the body of Job, his bone and his flesh, and he is confident Job would curse God. The Lord again permits Satan to do what he demanded with one restriction, Satan cannot touch Job's life. And soon we see Job covered from head to foot with sore boils scraping himself with a potsherd, sitting among the ashes. Only once does his wife appear upon the scene. She said to him, what Satan put into her heart: "Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die." Job answered her and in all this did not Job sin with his lips. After that the dark shadow disappears. He has lost the battle. God is victor.

However, we read much more of Job. Sitting in an ash heap, he used a potsherd to scrape the sores that pained him. What a dreadful contrast to his former prosperity and dignity! Also, his wife, his only near relative remaining, was not only no help to him, but practically abusive. She could not understand his uncomplaining attitude, and asked him, "Do you still hold fast to your integrity?" But worse still, she advised him to "curse God and die!" (v.9).

How true and faithful was Job's response! - "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?" (v.10). Job did not call her a foolish woman, but rightly said she was speaking as one. He was careful still to guard his lips, so that in all this he did not sin. This is not the usual way in which men would be affected, and his patient self-restraint is surely to be admired.