I.Satan’s low estimate of human nature. His language here clearly implies that even a good man’s love of goodness is not supreme and invincible. He states--
1. That goodness is not so dear to him as life. “Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.” Self-preservation is a strong instinct in human nature, and therefore a Divine principle; but it is not true that it is ever the strongest feeling in the human heart. A man who has come under the dominion of love for the true, the beautiful, and the good, holds his life as subordinate to the high principles of genuine religion and godly morality. This is a fact which the history of martyrdom places beyond debate. Thousands of men in Christendom today can say with Paul, “I count not my life dear unto me,” etc. He states--
2. That great personal suffering will turn even a good man against God. Such is the connection of the body with the soul that great bodily suffering has undoubtedly a tendency to generate a faithless, murmuring, and rebellious spirit.
II. Satan’s great power over human nature. We infer--
1. That his great power moves within fixed limits.
2. That his great power is used to torture the body and corrupt the soul. The ancients ascribed many physical diseases direct to the devil. Physical evils do spring from moral, and the devil is the instigator of the morally bad. See how he corrupts Job’s wife. “Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God and die.” If you substitute the word “bless” for “curse,” you still have the impious spirit of the wife: then in heartless irony she counsels her husband to blaspheme his God. Perhaps she meant, “Thou hast been blessing God under thine affliction thus far, go on with thy cant, and die, for death would be desirable both to thyself and me.” Satan acted thus not only on Job’s body, but on the soul of Job’s wife, and both in order to tempt the patriarch to sin against his Maker.
III. Satan’s grand purpose with human nature. What was his master purpose? To turn Job against God. And is not this his grand purpose with all men? There is one thought about his purpose, however, suggested by the text, encouraging to us, it is frustratable. Up to the present point he failed with Job. Three things are worthy of attention here concerning Job in frustrating the purpose of Satan.
1. He reproves his wife. “Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh.”
2. He vindicates God. “What? shall we receive good at the hands of God, and shall we not receive evil?”
3. He is commended by inspiration. Here is the Divine testimony to Job’s state of mind amid the torturing of the devil. “In all this did not Job sin with his lips.” (Homilist.)
Man in the hands of Satan
Job has held and still holds a unique place as the representative sufferer of the human race. This hero of meekness, all but overwhelmed with blank hopelessness, paralysed in the inmost nerve of his life, isolated from all that makes living bright and precious, and left, to all human seeming, absolutely helpless in the hands of a slandering and malignant fate, has so burnt his story into the imagination of mankind that it will never disappear so long as hearts are crushed by the wheels of care, and souls are bruised by the blows of temptation. The Old Testament has no more vital element. But is Job a real man, in the hands of a real devil, and sustained and made victorious by a real God, or have we nothing more substantial than fibrous figures woven into a beautiful tapestry by the deft fingers of a nimble fancy? It is plain that the author moves almost wholly in the poetical realm. So the conviction settles in our minds that the thought and fact of this book are cast into a mould as real as that of Agamemnon: a drama intended not for the eye of sense, but for the eye of the mind. Admitting the poetical form of the book, we must ask whether all our highest poetry does not rest on the immutable basis of fact. Illustrate from “In Memoriam,” George Eliot’s “Spanish Gipsy,” “Adam Bede,” etc. The history of Job is actual, and not a whit less so, because the form of the story is ideal and dramatic. The important question is, Are the truths which Job’s story embodies and illumines, eternal and universal; and do the ideas set forth concerning God and man, evil and good, go to the root of things, and expound the essential nature of our human life? The one thing urgent for us to know, is not, was there a Job, but is there a light from God in the history of Job that guides the reason and conscience? Does Job teach us how to live the best life, and cling with inviolable tenacity to God, not in Uz, but in London? Is God greater than evil? Can He subdue it, and will He? A glance at the prologue of the poem is enough to convince us that the book is expressly written to solve these deep and perplexing problems of the mind. Poem though it be in form, its exhaustless fascination is its philosophy. Like Milton’s great classic, it is a defence of the ways of God to men; a bold facing of plausible but false interpretations of life and destiny; a thorough and tremorless exposure of their inherent absurdity and unreason, and an unfaltering vindication of the character of God from all the aspersions of lazily-thinking Zophars, parrot-like Bildads, and fatalistic Elihus. See the special motive of Job’s fierce trial. He is not suffering for his sins. It is not a case of the ancestral “eating of sour grapes.” Nor is Job put into the furnace of affliction that he may come forth as gold. His affliction is not the apprenticeship of a strong nature to the educational influences of sorrow and temptation. What then is the special motive for this singular and significant experience? Listen to the colloquy in heaven between Satan and God concerning Job! Satan, the slanderer, says, “Doth Job fear God for nought?” Job knows well enough what he is about, and is simply making the best investment of his powers the market of human life offers. The case is crucial. The test is faultless. The experiment is carried to the maximum of severity. No element of evil is omitted. There then is the stake! How fare the combatants? That is the question at issue. See the swift changes through which Job is put. Satan is permitted to do his worst, and he does it with terrible suddenness and completeness. But all experiments fail utterly. The idea remains triumphant, that God is lovable in Himself and for Himself. Disinterested love of the Eternal is its own reward. He is lovable, notwithstanding fearful evils in our lot, and in our world. (J. Clifford, D. D.)
But save his life.
The worth of a good man
I. Because it is good in itself. Everything of inherent worth is worthy of preservation, even apart from the idea of utility. The jewel, though it be seldom worn as an ornament, must be carefully kept. So faith in the unseen, a reverent trust in God and fervent piety, had given a jewel-like beauty and value to the character of Job. Hence it must be spared.
II. Because it is useful to society. There are many things useful to society. Genius, and the honest pursuit of commercial enterprise, aid the common good of men. But nothing is more beneficial to society than true moral character. Men like Job are the strength, hope, and inspiration of the race. Remove them, and social life becomes dark, cold, and barren. Society has need to pray for the longevity of good men.
III. Because it shall be a pattern to after generations. The Bible is a pattern book of moral life. It is not only a book of cold precepts, but of sympathetic lives. Men need patterns in every sphere of work--in the mechanical and architectural, as well as in the moral. Many a man has become an artist through looking at a beautiful picture. While gazing upon it, the fires of genius have kindled within him. So the lives of men like Job have awakened the desire for piety within many a heart.
IV. Because the devil would only have liked to put an end to it. Could he have killed Job, he would have put out the best light of the times; have plucked the richest blossom of the season. But God would not allow this. He had to expend more discipline on Job yet. God has more love for His people than to let the devil do whet he likes with them. The power of Satan is limited, but fearful enough as it is. Are you afflicted? God watches you. Fear not!
V. Are our lives worth saving? (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
