Page 15 - The Poetic Books - Student Text

the Almighty but came to know him by the end more thoroughly as Yahweh, a much more personal God
who talks to people.

Our expectations are already pushed in a certain direction. We expect the life of Job to continue much as
it has. Obviously blessed by God and obviously concerned to please God, Job looks like someone who
will die peacefully of old age in his own bed surrounded by admiring great grandchildren. He has kept a
remarkable reputation in the larger community. We would expect him to pass on his faith as well as his
wealth to the coming generations.

2.2 Objectives

1. You will place the story of Job in the same time frame as Abraham.

2. You will wrestle with the “fairness” of God allowing Satan to attack Job.

3. You will discern the differences among Job’s three friends and their approach to suffering.

4. You will begin to make applications of Job’s life to a variety of situations in the lives of people today.

2.3 Job: Blameless and Upright: Job 1:1-14:22

If we expect this genuinely good man to receive only good in return from God’s hand, we
are wrong. In the rest of chapters one and two, Job experiences a series of terrible
reversals. In what looks to be a boasting contest between Yahweh and Satan, this one man
is singled out. Somehow Satan as an angel has access to God along with all the other angels.
God points out Job as an example of a faithful man. Satan taunts God, suggesting that Job
has been well paid for his devotion. “Stretch out your hand and strike everything he has,
and he will curse you to your face (1:11).” In response God allows Satan to remove Job’s donkeys, his
sheep, his camels, and his children in quick succession. Job’s faith in God holds fast. The text makes a
point of Job’s lack of sin (1:22).

Little is said about Job’s children. We do not know if any were married or had children. We do not know
if Job’s fears were true about any of them. Nothing is said about their lifestyles. We must assume that
the death of one of his children would have been painful for Job. How much more would he be reeling
from the death of all ten at one time! Their voices and faces and gestures would come to his mind in
memory. He would recall intimate times with each one, perhaps holding his first born or teaching his
daughters lessons of respect or watching as the ninth (or second or sixth) established himself
independently of Dad and Mom. Job’s peaceful world is turned upside down.

Right away our theological assumptions are troubled. If this can happen to Job, are my children safe,
even if I go to church regularly and attend Bible College? “Peace and tranquility, which we do not
deserve, show us God’s goodness and forbearance. It is a mark of our lostness that we invert these two.
We think we deserve the times of blessing and prosperity, and that the times of war and disaster are not

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