I have heard it commented that the book of Job shows that it’s Satan, not God who causes harm. So the last time I read through it, I kept track of all of the references to which person’s decision was behind what happened. Some of these references make explicit statements, and others are a more implied message.
I show them below. Did I miss* any?
Who Caused The Death And Suffering In Job
| Ref. | Who | Inferance | Text |
| Job 1:11 | God | Implied | “But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” |
| Job 1:12 | Satan | Implied | And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” |
| Job 1:21 | God | Explicit | The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away |
| Job 2:3 | Satan | Explicit | “You incited me against him to destroy him” |
| Job 2:3 | God | Explicit | “You incited me against him to destroy him” |
| Job 2:5 | God | Implied | “But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” |
| Job 2:6 | Satan | Implied | And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.” |
| Job 2:7 | Satan | Explicit | So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. |
| Job 2:10 | God | Implied | “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” |
| Job 42:11 | God | Explicit | And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. |
So, in summary . . .
| Inference | Satan | God |
| Implied | 2 | 3 |
| Explicit | 2 | 3 |
By the way, if you think I’m using a faulty hermeneutic, please let me know how you think it is faulty.
* For the record, there are several implications in the middle chapters that God did these things, but since they are intermixed with statements that show the speakers have a flawed understanding of reality, I have not included them here. Fair enough? In any case, it seems like no character in the story has any inkling that Satan was a part of what happened.
13 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 22, 2012 at 3:34 pm
xdpaul
I’m confused. Can you clarify the purpose of a “verse vs. verse” (just don’t say that aloud!) scoreboard of implications?
I think I don’t understand the Inference categories either.
In any case, on a plain reading Job 2:3 only implicates Satan as the one desiring destruction/harm. He’s asking for permission to conduct more.
February 22, 2012 at 4:06 pm
jamsco
The inference categories are just show whether God (or Satan) is explicitly stated to have caused the suffering, or if it is just implied that he has.
February 22, 2012 at 4:28 pm
jamsco
Agreed. But the question I’m trying to ask and answer here is – who was it who caused it, ordained it, chose that it would happen.
February 24, 2012 at 2:03 pm
xdpaul
Which: cause, ordain or chose? or all three?
Sorry to be so slow. I honestly do not understand.
If I’m misunderstanding (likely) please correct this:
I don’t see God’s cause, ordination or choosing in Job 2:3. He’s accusing Satan of a desire. Whether alone or in context, I don’t think there’s enough there to make the definitive leap that God is implicated there.
I’ll put it another way:
It could be read this way – “You incited me to destroy him […and I was incited and destroyed him.”
Or it could be read this way – “You incited me to destroy him […and I did not, but instead removed my hedge and restrained you.]”
In other words, Satan asked God to “touch Job’s life” in a destructive way. God refused to damage Job, instead loosening the restraints on Satan. Satan damns himself further as he takes that liberty and performs his terrible experiment in relative freedom.
Even Job does not present evidence of wrongdoing by God. In 1:21, he seems to be referring to the hedge that God gave him and then removed, not the family and stuff that Satan struck. Otherwise, 1:22 makes no sense. God is not implicated in Job’s suffering here.
Now, I guess there’s a place to say that a man who removes the chain and collar from a dangerous dog can be implicated in whatever mayhem ensues, but this is more akin to the governor who, in his mercy, pardons a criminal who then, in his freedom, commits another crime.
Did the governor cause the crime? Will he be charged? Did he ordain violence in his choice? Is the suffering of the second crime victim caused by the governor?
In reading the book again (and thanks for inspiring me to do that) – I notice that Satan is a weasel – he keeps begging God to do the damage Himself, taunting God that he does not have the same power that Satan has – to destroy his servant.
Now, of course God has the power to do that – what is important that he, like Jesus against the Pharisees, turns it back on the accuser – “You do it if you are so great and powerful. You want this done? You make it happen.”
Satan believes his greatness is in the ability to do things God “can’t.” What God demonstrates in his humility is that God’s power extends to those things that he does not do. This is why things like “remnants,” “patience,” “stayed hand,” “hedges”, “silence” etc. all traditionally passive expressions become expressions of God’s might and authority throughout the Old and New Testament.
It isn’t that God “can’t.” It is that he “doesn’t.”
Many, many apologies if I’m getting off on a rabbit trail. I actually think it is a very important book, and I’m interested in your thoughts.
February 25, 2012 at 1:16 am
jamsco
I appreciate your comments because they have forced me to think about how to express what I think is happening in this story. And I don’t think you’re getting of on a rabbit trail.
I agree that the “You incited me against him to destroy him” passage is instructive and that a straight forward reading of it indicates that God is giving Satan permission to cause all of this death and suffering. I think we can’t read this verse, by itself, to mean that God should be implicated in the suffering (just like we couldn’t with the Governor who gives the pardon).
But I think there is more going on here. I am intrigued by 1:21, 2:10 and 42:11 where Job and the Narrator puts the blame squarely on God. Were they wrong?
I think God ordained all of what Satan did – that God chose for him to say all of these things – for His own Glory. I think that is the subtext (or, if you like, the Supertext) of what is going on in the story.
One of the main messages of chapters 38 – 42 is God’s message that he is above us, above our thinking, He is not merely an actor in this story.
So my main point is that Satan chose for these things to happen, and God chose for these things to happen. This is impossible to fully understand, but I think it’s what the words of Job indicate.
Does that make sense?
February 25, 2012 at 1:18 am
jamsco
By the way, xdpaul, I’m curious how you found my blog.
February 27, 2012 at 1:35 pm
xdpaul
I think that makes sense, although I have a much different (potentially erroneous) understanding of the “God ordained” verses than you do.
What’s important to me is that all of the language that accuses God is a quote from Satan. God never agrees with his take on the situation. Satan’s commitment to misappropriate and mangle and misapply God’s words (like in Genesis) stand out in 1:11.
In 1:12, God does not put Job into Satan’s hand but suspends his special rule that kept Job, unlike the rest of humanity, out of the “natural” domain of the Satanic. Is there a reason why I should not understand God to say, in effect, “Okay – you’ve had humankind in your hand this far – what are you going to do that’s so Me-like with Job in his natural place in your kingdom?”
The answer, ultimately, is nothing. Satan’s impotence vs. the coming cross is a significant message that I draw from this, but, I may very well have my bucket in the wrong well, so to speak. Satan vs. Eve shows his “best” qualities at their zenith – Satan vs. Job show the same ones at their nadir.
In other words, God is saying: he’s in your hands, you have the authority. Surprise me and show mercy, if you are so God-like.
Satan doesn’t have a chance: he demonstrates his nature, fails (like the blind Pharisees, his children) to do the one thing that God does freely.
Honestly, I don’t remember how I found this blog – I actually think that I came here by way of a humor site (is that possible? – it was some time ago), because that’s usually how I find blogs. I’m pretty sure it was not through Vox’s site even though I know you two have some overlap, because I remember being mildly surprised to discover the overlap after independently knowing of the two places individually.
You are taxing the memory of an addled old man, but if pressed, I think it was some sort of joke about how “playing golf is like paying to look like an idiot.” I don’t know if that was the entry point, for me, but it was definitely one of the first posts I remember, because I say that all the time now. What I am certain of is that I’m absolutely ruining any semblance of accurate memories of my arrival here.
Maybe that’s why I see the same thing happening in Job!
February 27, 2012 at 6:00 pm
Truth Unites... and Divides
Arminians, and in particular I’m thinking of Roger Olson, accuse Calvinism (and by extension Calvinists) of making God into a moral monster. That Calvinism and Calvinists are turning God into the Author of Evil.
Your post on Job makes me wonder how Arminians exegete (or rather eisegete) the Book of Job. In fact, I even wonder whether many Arminians think the Book of Job is non-historical.
P.S. Found your blog via TurretinFan.
March 12, 2012 at 10:26 am
Markku Koponen
I think Job is quite straightforward. Satan suspects that God doesn’t REALLY know everything and have everything in control. He thinks that he can outsmart God, and make God’s number one man (currently living) bring shame to God’s name. The thought is, “if even the very best of all men will curse God, then all men would curse God and I was right to rebel.”
Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and not to chill out and enjoy life, so God allows Satan to give it his best shot. He already knows what Job will do.
Satan fails. God is glorified.
March 12, 2012 at 10:38 am
Markku Koponen
So, in one sense, Satan did it. He devised and executed the plan. And it was for an evil end.
In another sense, God did it. He had the final word in whether or not these things would happen to Job, and the word was that they would. But it was for a good end – so that everybody could witness His glory.
March 12, 2012 at 11:11 am
Markku Koponen
Furthermore, look at God’s answer to Job. Those chapters could be paraphrased like this: “You know next to nothing. You can do next to nothing.” And Job was completely satisfied with the answer, and took back everything he had said.
Isn’t this odd? If it was just Satan who did it, we might expect that God would instead say something like “Why are you blaming ME for your troubles? It wasn’t me at all.” But no, it doesn’t go like that.
The whole point of the book seems to be that when you are suffering, God might have a plan, and He is not going to share the information with you. You just have to take it, and trust that there is a plan. If you were like God, you’d know the plan and see how it all makes sense. But you’re not.
Job understood this from God’s answer, and was satisfied.
May 29, 2017 at 1:10 pm
Jerryhern
The Governer example is a poor one at best, comparing it is impossible because unlike the Governor who releases a convicted criminal, God knows before hand what we will do.
The Governor is only hopefull at best, he has no idea what heinous crime he will commit, ad oppose to God knowing the future. So God knew exactly what was going to happen to Job.
I am really in awe and simply stuck here in Gods sovereign rein. In control at all times. Knowing every evil and allowing it to befall us, yet still He remains Holy. Amen. I love this book because it forces me to stretch my mind and ultimately say, I don’t understand God. And that my friends is where I want to be, because a God that I can understand ceases to be God. Who can understand Him ? His thoughts are not ours and His ways are not our ways.
Also the comment about satan, He knows God knows everything. He is no dummy satan has more intellect than any man and any other spiritual being. He was made the most beautiful most powerful cherub there ever was. He witnessed God cast him down, he knows the bible better than any man or angel. I enjoy this topic because it leaves me astounded and in awe of how God was in sovereign control at all times, men as Pastor Rick Warren have said, God’s will is not being done, just look at all the evil going on in the world.
I would argue with the fact that the book of Job would teach him to the contrary. There has never been a time that God’s will is being done. Even in letting us do our own evil will.
May 29, 2017 at 1:15 pm
Jerryhern
Sorry typo , There has never been a time that God’s will is not being done.