Job · chapter 2 of 42
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Job 2 tells of a second scene in heaven, in which Satan receives permission to strike Job's body but not take his life. Job is covered with sores and his wife urges him to curse God and die, but he answers that we must accept bad as well as good. Three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, arrive and sit with him seven days in silence.
After losing his property and children in Job 1, Job stands firm. The second chapter closes the book's prose prologue with a new test, closer and more painful, and with the arrival of the friends who will dominate the speeches that follow. The background of the whole book is now set: Job is innocent, suffers without knowing why, and his faith is still standing.
One day the sons of God again present themselves before the Lord, and Satan comes among them once more. The Lord points out that Job still holds fast to his integrity, although Satan had incited him to ruin Job without cause. Satan answers with a saying: skin for skin, a man will give all he has for his life. Touch his bone and flesh, he says, and Job will curse God to his face. The Lord allows him to strike Job but commands him to spare his life.
Satan strikes Job with painful sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Job sits among the ashes and scrapes himself with a piece of broken pottery. His wife tells him to hold on to his integrity still, and to curse God and die. Job answers that she speaks like a foolish woman: if we receive good from God, shall we not receive evil too? The narrator notes that in all this Job did not sin with his lips.
Three friends of Job hear of his misfortune: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite. They agree to go together to show sympathy and comfort him. When they see him from a distance they hardly recognize him; they weep aloud, tear their robes and throw dust on their heads. They sit on the ground with him seven days and seven nights, and no one says a word to him, because they see that his suffering is very great.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The Lord says that Job still holds fast to his integrity, although Satan incited him to ruin Job for no reason. God himself acknowledges that Job's suffering is undeserved, and that testimony carries the reader through the long debates that follow.
Job's wife, who also lost her ten children, proposes that he curse God and die. Her voice shows how far pain can push a person and names the temptation Job must refuse.
Job says that if we accept good from God, we must also accept evil, and the narrator observes that he did not sin with his lips. His faith is not naive, yet he does not accuse God, and that answer will face harder tests.
The three friends sit with Job seven days and seven nights without a word, because they see how great his suffering is. This silent company is the best thing they do in the whole book.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: To strike Job's body, his bone and flesh, but not to take his life. — Job 2:4-6
Answer: Painful sores from head to foot, and he sat among the ashes scraping himself with a piece of broken pottery. — Job 2:7-8
Answer: To curse God and die. — Job 2:9
Answer: He said she spoke like a foolish woman and that if we receive good from God we must also receive evil. — Job 2:10
Answer: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite. — Job 2:11
Answer: They wept, tore their robes, threw dust toward heaven on their heads and sat with him seven days and seven nights without speaking. — Job 2:12-13
Job 2 puts two nearby voices before us. Job's wife speaks out of pain and advises surrender; the friends, at first, keep him company in silence. When someone in our church goes through illness or grief, the wisest thing is often to be present without offering explanations. A small group can learn from these seven days of silence.
The chapter also shows that we can tell the truth without hiding the pain. Job does not pretend to be fine, but he does not curse either. If someone in your class is facing a trial they do not understand, remind them that God does not ask for faith without tears. He asks for faith that holds on to him even when life hurts.
Job 2 ends with four men sitting in silence among ashes and dust. That silence breaks in Job 3, when Job opens his mouth and curses the day of his birth, and the long series of speeches that fills most of the book begins.
It is a saying whose exact sense scholars debate. Most likely Satan means that a person will give up possessions, even other people, to save his own body, so the real test is to touch Job himself. With it he asks permission to strike Job's flesh and bone.
The text does not explain her motives, but she had just lost all ten of her children and was watching her husband suffer. Her advice expresses despair, and Job firmly rejects it without scorning her as a person. The book does not speak of her in detail again.
They were Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuah and Zophar from Naamah, men who came from their own places to comfort him. They represent the traditional wisdom of their time, which held that suffering is a result of sin. At first they act well by staying silent, but later their speeches turn into accusations.