David: [upbeat music] Well, welcome everyone to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. We're continuing our walk through the Book of Job. Last episode, we ended up looking at comparative literature to Job, other ancient Near Eastern theodicy literature that were exploring some of the same themes that are in the Book of Job, things like an innocent sufferer, which is a category that totally exists, uh, despite our best efforts to explain it away, along with Job's friends. We looked at how there's this relationship between the innocent sufferer and the divine, that they're trying to figure out how to make sense of, and for some, escape or endure through that suffering. And we looked at what is similar between those other ancient Near Eastern theodicy pieces of literature like Job, but we also, keenly, also looked at the differences between them and the unique contributions that Job is making about the God of Israel, the Yahweh that he has somehow come to know out there in Gentile territory. [laughs] Today though, we are going to jump into the book itself and look at the relationship that Satan has in this book with Job, with God, and the role of suffering in humanity itself. And looking at all the ways that God uses suffering, the ways Satan tries to use suffering, and the way we as humanity use suffering to accomplish something, [laughs] and we're gonna try to see what that is by looking at the three places where we see this paradigm of Satan testing humans. And I say the three places, not that those are the only three places, but we're looking at three places, and those are Satan with Adam and Eve in the garden, Satan with Job in obviously Job, and Satan with Jesus in the wilderness. And we're gonna read those kind of on top of each other and see what God is trying to show us through that theme in the Bible. So as you approach this, Christine, looking at these topics we're getting into today, what's front of mind for you in terms of fear, excitement, you're just holding something in ready to blab it out, you don't wanna say anything. What's like right at the front of your mind today?
Christine: That's a daring question.
David: [laughs]
Christine: What's at the front of my mind right now, just in thinking about how diverse this topic is and how many places we can go and might go alongside the beats that you mentioned, which will be kind of our outline, but it is such a deep topic. And so what was at the front of my mind when you asked that was a snake and a chalice, [laughs] if you must know.
David: I must know.
Christine: The way that venom and the antidote for venom is contained in the same beast, in the same creature-
David: Mm.
Christine: ... and how that has also been a symbol of suffering turned to victory, and how we use the evil one to conquer the evil one and his effects in the world. So that's what was at the front of my mind, [laughs] and I will try to just leave it at that.
David: Well, I think that's an idea that will probably get unpacked [laughs] throughout this episode. It, it will come up.
Christine: That's homework for another day probably, but-
David: [laughs] Well, hold it in your head everyone if we don't get around to it. But let us begin by maybe just opening up the Book of Job and starting with what has led to thousands of [laughs] sermons, ideas, articles, and speculations about what's going on in the heavenly courtroom, heavenly throne room, heavenly council here. And I'm not saying we're gonna try to answer all of that, but we are just going to look at what God has given us in the Book of Job and see what we can find. So the- at least we're gonna look at Job 1:6-12, and then hopefully if we have time, chapter 2 verses 1 to 6, the two dialogues in a sense between God and the accuser, the Satan.
Christine: Yeah. Okay. Let's, let's set up the story then.
David: Yeah.
Christine: 'Cause I think it's very interesting seeing or noting the differences or the similarities I should say between heaven and Earth, and how there's a gathering of families, as it were, and I don't know, there are just a lot of parallels between heaven and Earth in this story. And so-
David: Oh, so saying like there's this gathered family on Earth, and then we're about to see a gathered body in heaven.
Christine: A gathered family in heaven, yeah.
David: Okay.
Christine: God and the sons of God are meeting in heaven, and Job and his children are doing things on Earth. And I think it's just worth noting what goes on in heaven and on Earth, and how those collide in this book. It's-
David: Yes
Christine: ... it's just a fun thing to set up, and you can take notes along the way. But to get us to verse six, shall we start at the top?
David: Yep.
Christine: Okay.
David: "So there was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil." So the land of Uz, not an Israelite territory. This is Gentile territory. I remember one, I think it was Gregory the Great talked about this as Job being like a lily among thorns.
Christine: Aw.
David: Yeah, like this-
Christine: Well, that's sweet given that Job is beloved of God.
David: Yes. [laughs] And so you're out in this thorny wilderness territory where there's lots of strange ideas about what the gods are doing, and yet you have this blameless, upright, God-fearing man named Job. And I'm struggling to remember what Job's name means.
Christine: Afflicted. [laughs]
David: That's right. Okay. Yes, afflicted.
Christine: That kind of sets up an Eden parallel as well, which I know we'll go back to the beginning in this, but creating a space or a land where there are thorns, and then there's one blossom in the midst of it, and then we'll see his family and stuff and animals. There are a lot of connections between This intro and the intro of creation and how we're introduced to humanity, to God, to how things are or ought to be, and who comes in to mess it up.
David: Yeah. Oh, that's fascinating. So in this wilderness gentile, bristly territory, we've got a little garden flourishing.
Christine: In the wild and waste, there's a little pocket of paradise.
David: I love that. Okay. And so there were born to him, Job, seven sons and three daughters. He had 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 donkeys, and very many servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.
Christine: There's a lot in here. Again, I think just saying pay attention to Edenic stuff sets-
David: Mm-hmm
Christine: ... it up really well. We have Job as sort of this king, this ruler in the East, and he has plenty. He has, you know, a whole creation, a whole world all to himself that he rules.
David: Yeah.
Christine: And he's-
David: Pausing you there because that was a new thought for me when I first heard it, was I just read this and like, oh, he had a bunch of stuff. This is not a domestic farmstead.
Christine: No.
David: He's a king-
Christine: He's a ruler
David: ... and this is a land. This is so much wealth that it represents a kingdom, a city.
Christine: Yes.
David: Yes.
Christine: One of the big crises that will draw these other three kings to Job is this suffering that Job has been afflicted with because the king and the kingdom rise and fall together. So when Job has everything taken away from him and is reduced to dust and ashes, the kings, his friends come and they try to solve this problem because when the king falls, the kingdom comes after. And to say nothing of all his heirs that would be lost. In the verses that follow, there's just a big, there's a lot on the line, kind of like you said. This isn't just a farmer out in the middle of nowhere. This is a king.
David: Yeah. And I don't think I ever read it that way until somebody pointed it out to me. I don't know why.
Christine: Huh.
David: Maybe it's just because I come from a very individualistic [laughs] culture where it's, you would just see this as one rich dude and his family.
Christine: It's not necessarily obvious.
David: That's true.
Christine: And if anything, if you're thinking back to other examples in the Bible, you'd think, oh, Abraham.
David: Like Abraham. Yeah.
Christine: He had loads of donkeys and camels and sheep and stuff, and his descendants did, too. But then you also remember, oh, Abraham routed, like, five kings.
David: Yes. He was a mobile kingdom.
Christine: He, yeah, he was a king, too.
David: Yes.
Christine: So if Job is like Abraham, it's not necessarily wrong to think of Job as a type of king because Abraham also was a ruler of sorts.
David: You also mentioned that these other three kings come to visit Job, which is a different idea, too, than, "Oh, my, my buddies next door came over."
Christine: Well, it becomes a council-
David: Mm
Christine: ... is what happens, which again is, remember what we said about heaven and Earth mirroring each other?
David: Yes.
Christine: So there's a council of great ones in the heavens, and the story that unfolds throughout the majority of Job's chapters is a council on Earth that may or may not be representing what's going on in heaven.
David: Okay. Yeah. That is pretty crazy. I had made one connection, or I'd been shown one connection between the Earth and heaven thing where, and we'll get to it, unpacking it, but I'd seen the Satan is accusing before God. The friends are kind of accusing before Job, and so there's a s- they play a accuser role, a Satan role.
Christine: There's a parallel.
David: There's a parallel. But I hadn't seen this gathering of kings and rulers as a mirror of the heavenly council, a gathering of kings and rulers as this parallel, this mirror, and just thinking about how much more, like you said, is on the line when we think about this central kingdom is crumbling, and it's Job's that's crumbling. I'm guessing by all accounts, that would be the last kingdom you thought would crumble 'cause Job was this great guy, and it's crumbling. Well, that's gonna have not only effects for all of the citizens living on his land, all the devastation that's come to their economy, but then that's gonna have ripple effects across the neighboring kingdoms as they're trying to rule together and alongside one another, that there's a whole civilization on the line on this question.
Christine: Yeah, or at the very least, a whole family-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... or a whole clan.
David: Whole clan.
Christine: That, as we'll find out later, is ravaged by Sabeans and Chaldeans.
David: Right.
Christine: I mean, it takes a whole army to destroy parts of Job's wealth, and then you have these kings who see Job in a vulnerable state, and they come to help him. And so you can see there's this alliance between this clan and that clan or this tribe and that tribe, and they are coming actually to try and aid him and hopefully raise him back up. And so that's part of the, the reason why they're so eager to get him to confess his sin [laughs] 'cause they're trying to get him out of this state. Yeah, but this heavenly council and earthly council, again, there's so many Edenic parallels happening here with God in heaven and then the people on Earth. And you'll recall the council that unfolds on Earth between Job and his friends is Job, his friends, and whatever spirits are also speaking through them.
David: Yeah.
Christine: So the heaven and Earth overlap. It infiltrates.
David: It's not just a literary parallel.
Christine: It's not.
David: There's an actual, like, ontological overlap-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... between heaven and Earth interacting with one another.
Christine: Yes.
David: Yeah.
Christine: We are, the idea that heaven is up there and Earth is down here is just not-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... something that Job affords in his world. We are invited into this heaven and Earth permeable by communication-
David: Mm-hmm
Christine: ... by travel, by spirits, and humans talking to each other and to God and to these spirits, and there is a very porous reality-
David: Yes
Christine: ... we're introduced to.
David: Which if you didn't listen to our episode last time, was the world of Job that he lived in as they're talking about, "Oh, I'm trying to figure out what the gods want, so I get these omen readers and these diviners and these soothsayers to try to figure out and listen to the gods for me so I can give them what will libate their hearts." This is the world of Job that he lives in, is a porous one.
Christine: And in many ways it's our world, too.
David: It definitely is. Yeah.
Christine: In much less secular places in the world, you will get this all the time.
David: Yes. It is our world whether we recognize it or not. It's the one we live in, whether or not we are playing pretend that we are alone in this world. [laughs]
Christine: Yeah. It's a crowded universe-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... for sure, and that's How it was set up in Eden, that's how it is shown and revealed in Job, and so that's sort of what we are invited into at the very least while we're reading it.
David: That's good. Okay, verse four. "His sons used to go and hold feasts in one another's houses in turn, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. And when the feast days had run their course, Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, 'It may be that my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.' This is what Job always did."
Christine: Very cool. So we get a patriarchal priesthood, which is also very endemic to Job's time.
David: Yeah, we have a king priest.
Christine: Yes.
David: The elder of the family-
Christine: The father
David: ... is operating in that kingship governance role, but he's also the intercessor for that family between God and man, and he's fulfilling that role through intercession and sacrifice.
Christine: Yes, which I hope I'm not stealing too much thunder from when we go to Genesis, but this is also Adam's role, too. He is supposed to be the mediator between these worlds and the guardian of his domain, and Job does this through intercession and sacrifices and making sure his family is provided for on all fronts.
David: No, I do think it's helpful to remember that the first priest-king human is Adam.
Christine: Yeah, the father of all.
David: And Job is now a type of Adam.
Christine: Yeah.
David: We've seen him as kind of a parallel to Abraham. He's definitely a type of Adam, and that's gonna be really important as we move forward.
Christine: I think that maybe neither here nor there, but the idea that he stands between sin and his family-
David: Mm
Christine: ... is another way that he's acting like an Adamic guardian of his family, that he's covering over even the possibility of sins in his children, so he is, like a good priest and father, committed to the purity of his children.
David: Am I supposed to have in my head, like, this picture of, like, the border of Eden versus the wilderness outside and that he's tending, protecting, keeping, having dominion over that area-
Christine: Mm-hmm
David: ... and keeping, [laughs] without getting too weird, like, keeping the snakes out?
Christine: Yeah, I think so.
David: Okay.
Christine: I think in many ways we're supposed to see that, and the fact that he is trying to cover over or intercede f- for his children if they possibly cursed God in their hearts-
David: Mm
Christine: ... is something that will come up later, and I love that Job is, yeah, just kind of really well-rounded in that. And there's a lot more in there, but just things that are coming to the surface as-
David: Right
Christine: ... as we're going.
David: So we have this on Earth side of the picture, where we have a garden in the midst of a wilderness with a king priest who is ruling his land well. He has the kind of Edenic paradisical abundance filling his land with, you know, sevens and threes and fives, thousands and hundreds of, of animals, which is just continue to repeat this utter blessing that this man is living in. He's fruitful and multiplying. He even has a Sabbath number of sons, [laughs] you know? Like, there's, there's a very intentional thing happening here in the story. And so we've got a new Eden picture here on Earth in the midst of the wilderness. Well, what's going on in the heavens? We keep reading. Verse six. "One day, the heavenly beings," which could also be rendered the sons of God, I think more literally, "came to present themselves before Yahweh, and the accuser," transliterated in a sense, the Satan, if we will, "also came among them." Okay, so we've got a council. This is what we were setting up with what's about to happen on Earth, is a gathering of rulers, a gathering of, quote-unquote, kings or princes.
Christine: Yeah, and something worth noting, I think, is kind of like how we mentioned there is a gathering in heaven that's sort of a, like a family gathering. God and the sons of God are assembling together. And notably, the name for God here is Yahweh-
David: Yes
Christine: ... which is the God of Israel, and Yahweh's name appears most strongly at the beginning of Job and at the end of Job.
David: Mm-hmm.
Christine: And so that's just something that's kind of neat to note, that this is the Hebrew God, the God of Israel, and the God who made heaven and Earth, who is calling all these angels together, all these sons together.
David: Yeah, and it's very different from the world we saw in the comparative literature in the last episode, where there was an order of power, in a sense, a hierarchy of power, where, oh, I need a demon that's stronger than the sickly demon to drive it out, and I need a really protective goddess to defend me from these other things, so let me try to get the strongest patrons I can. But there's no hierarchy of authority in those. It's all about who's the strongest and which one I can get on my side.
Christine: Yeah.
David: Here, there's a clear hierarchy of power and authority that all of these spiritual beings are coming and gathering before Yahweh. It's his court, right? He is the king of heaven.
Christine: Yes.
David: And it's not only the ones that are necessarily, like, I don't know what to say. Uh, this is, I'm gonna fumble this, but, like, the ones on his side, he even gathers the Satan, you know, comes before him in a sense.
Christine: Yeah, all are present to God.
David: All are present to God.
Christine: Interestingly, when God asks, "Where did Satan come from?" He doesn't say heaven. He talks about the earth. So again, porous cosmology going on here. There's a sense in which Satan is on earth, but in heaven, but still on earth-
David: Yes
Christine: ... or at least came from earth.
David: So yeah, I wanna poke at this real quick, 'cause this is pretty interesting. So before we get to Satan here, we have this idea of a heavenly council, a gathering of the sons of God. I think in a lot of our Western minds, the idea of God co-ruling with other beings is foreign to us, that when we picture how God's ruling the heavens, he's up there alone. And he is doing things on his own, and we don't necessarily have the biblical image readily available of him consulting with, talking to, sending, commissioning, limiting, commanding, restricting a whole myriad of beings in the heavens, uh, to do his will. But that is the situation that we encounter here, not only in Job 1, but lots of places in the Bible, that there is a heavenly council.
Christine: Yeah. Crowded heavens, crowded Earth, and the whole, I don't know where we might feel God's authority or if the idea that God reigning with many beings is, could be seen as a threat to his power. It definitely is not.
David: The opposite is quite true.
Christine: It's, the opposite is true. Yes, God is categorically different from everything because he created all things. He is therefore uncreated, and his power cannot be challenged or manipulated or anything like that, and all power is derivative of him. When we say that God moves mountains, that does not have to necessarily mean God without any derivative agency. And God heals people is true, but it's also true that doctors heal people. Well, doctors are being agents of God or being vessels of God's power to heal, and people save people. You can save someone from drowning, and you can tell them, "You saved me," and that is not saying that God didn't save you, but God saved you by their hand. And so God's power is his alone, and he delegates his authority to reign and rule to other beings, and he's not threatened by other thrones in his throne room. We'll see that in Revelation. His throne room is full of thrones 'cause he loves to delegate and reign with other people, [laughs] and that's such good news.
David: It's such good news. And it, it also does... A crowded heaven doesn't diminish God's authority and power, it increases it.
Christine: It does.
David: The size of a kingdom and the number of beings and the might of those beings that submit to a king prove the power of that king.
Christine: Yes.
David: If I went and just sat in a chair and said, "I'm a king of an empty room," what kind of king am I? But if I sit on a throne and I have the most powerful beings on Earth bowing to me and asking my will, then what kind of king am I?
Christine: Yeah.
David: And that is the kind of king, par excellence, that Yahweh is.
Christine: Yeah. I was reading in Chronicles this morning of Solomon's splendor.
David: Mm.
Christine: And he dedicates the temple. He has this whole retinue of wealth and servants and stuff, and that is what overwhelms the Queen of Sheba when she visits him. She sees the way his servants are dressed, the wealth of wisdom that comes from his mouth, the wealth that is in his palace and everywhere, and she's just like, "You surpassed the news that I heard in my country." And it's this abundance of glory that, an abundance of servants and counselors and stuff that shows how great a king Solomon is, and it's kind of similar with God.
David: Yes. The abundance shows the majesty.
Christine: Yes.
David: Yeah, it proves the power. Okay.
Christine: Yeah.
David: Well then, that also has something to say with the fact that it's not only the sons of God that are there, but it's also the Satan is brought into this moment in a unique way, which we can talk about, but God's palace or dominion is not limited to those who have allegiance to him. But those who are actively working against him or are counter to him also are underneath his throne.
Christine: Yeah. Even Satan, who is in rebellion against God, even though he knows he can't do anything to thwart God per se, also has to show up when God calls a meeting, and maybe even against his will, but God is in control. And so the idea that there's a disgruntled Satan, I'm not saying Satan is disgruntled here. We can't take that from the text.
David: No.
Christine: But the idea of Satan being there at the family meeting and [laughs] can't do anything about it is kind of a, a flex.
David: It is. And so we've been dancing around this thought here, but the way that Satan is, quote-unquote, "brought into this council" is different than the way the sons of God are present at the council because he is kind of on Earth-
Christine: Mm
David: ... but also brought into heaven. And one of the ways that, um, early commenters have talked about this was that God can see Satan, but Satan can't see God. They use a metaphor in a way that if we had our eyes closed and someone turned on a light, we would know there was light present, but we couldn't open our eyes to behold it. But to God, Satan is fully visible, but God is not fully visible to Satan, but he knows he's there. So it's kind of like this, technical with it, 'cause this is not technical language. This is poetry, and it's above our [laughs] pay grade here. But God's gathering this heavenly council with him around him in the heavens, but then Satan, who's doing things kind of on Earth and roaming about, gets like a spotlight shone on him, and it's like, "Hey, you two, what's going on?" And he's like, "Oh, I know, I'm doing the thing that I always do. Leave me alone." You know, and it, like you said, we can't say that he's being snarky or he's being all mopey, but his response is a bit like, I think, uh, you were the one who said it before, where it's, it's like the classic teenager who comes home from school, and you're like, "How was your day?" "It's fine." "What'd you do?" "School stuff," is kinda how he answers them. He's like, "What have you been doing?" "The thing I've always been doing, man." Like, [laughs] he just kinda has this rebellious teenager kind of vibe to him.
Christine: Yeah, he always, he has to have permission from God to speak. He only speaks when spoken to.
David: Yeah.
Christine: And when he does speak, it is a bit of a challenge-
David: Mm
Christine: ... or it's a question about Job, the one that God will bring up to him. So there's a lot in there that we can unpack a little bit more, but-
David: Yeah
Christine: ... that's what I'm noticing.
David: So yeah, verse 7, Yahweh said to the accuser- Where have you come from? The accuser answered Yahweh, "From going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it." Yahweh said to the accuser, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil." Then the accuser answered Yahweh, "Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has on every side? You have blessed the works of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand now and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face."
Christine: Okay, there are so many parallels there. Did you catch those?
David: I think so. [laughs]
Christine: Okay. What's happening that's similar that we've already read about?
David: Satan talks about the, all the ways God has blessed him.
Christine: Yeah.
David: Like, and this hedge of protection that He's put around him, and we've noticed that Job kind of lives in this Edenic-type hedged in place, and there's lots of flourishing and lots of abundance, and Satan's like, "You've given him all of that." And so that's one thing I'm seeing.
Christine: To just unpack that a little, Satan mentions his household, everything he has, the work of his hands, his flocks and herds, and everything that is blessed, and we get that detailed description in the opening verses. And then at the end of those opening verses, we see what Job does to ensure the purity of his family and the Edenic nature of his family, and that is being a priest unto God for his family-
David: Mm-hmm
Christine: ... lest his children might have cursed God in their hearts. And Satan challenges God with that same possibility, that you take all that he is being a priest over, and he will curse you to your face.
David: Hmm. Okay. So we're learning, one, we're learning all that Job had that we read about in this Edenic space is from Yahweh. So it is, again, a Eden cr- Genesis 1 creation moment, where all of this happened because of Yahweh.
Christine: Yeah. Satan says, "The reason why Job is like you is because you are doing this for Job," or, "What Job is doing for his family, you are doing for him."
David: Hmm.
Christine: The way Job is protecting his family and governing his Edenic land is what God is doing for Job through Job, which is so interesting because Satan is here taking something good, and he's saying this is bad, or he's taking a good thing that Job and God are doing together and twisting it in a way that he says, "This is not good enough," or, "This is not good by itself."
David: Yeah. Wow. The accuser stinks.
Christine: [laughs]
David: He's literally looking at Eden and saying, like, "Well, of course they'll follow you in Eden."
Christine: Yes.
David: I can prove you wrong on that account.
Christine: Yeah.
David: Which sounds familiar.
Christine: It's saying, you being a good father is actually bad for your children.
David: Whoa. Yeah, I've, I've heard that one before.
Christine: Wow.
David: Yeah. Yeah.
Christine: Well-
David: Yeah. Oh, oh, if you're really nice to your kids and you love them well and you forgive them and you protect them, all you're doing is sheltering them and ... Anyway, not to get into it. [laughs] This isn't a-
Christine: Well, he is-
David: ... a parenthood podcast. [laughs]
Christine: Well, he, that's what Satan essentially is twisting the perspective of Job's life into, is that you're sheltering Job.
David: Yeah.
Christine: He hasn't tasted a bad day of his life, which we do not know that-
David: We don't know that
Christine: ... and he does not expli- explicitly say that, but he- he's like, "It's easy to praise you when times are always good."
David: Yeah. And so he's saying that Job is doing this priest thing, too, where in case his children have cursed God in their heart, he's making intercession for them. He's saying, "But if you take away even his means of intercession, his sacrifices, this hedge of protection, all of this, then Job will do the thing he's trying to protect his kids from."
Christine: Yes.
David: He will curse God in his heart.
Christine: Yes. In a way, maybe implying that Job is actually only making these sacrifices to protect the bounty that he has, to protect the possessions that he has.
David: Satan's accusation is that Job is only acting this way to keep what he has, not because he loves God.
Christine: Yes.
David: He's doing it for himself, not for God.
Christine: Yes. In many ways, he's playing into the literature of the other-
David: Yes
Christine: ... cultures. Job has just the best insurance ever, and that's the only reason why he even has a relationship with you, is because of what you are giving him.
David: Okay, we have to click on that for just a second because that is so well-read alongside the other theodicy text that we looked at in the last episode because all of the innocent sufferers are trying to make sacrifices and the right intercessions and the right offerings to get the strongest divine patron on their side who can protect them from suffering and help them keep the, the plenty and the luxury and the pleasure that they have. So Satan is accusing Job of basically being a pagan, of saying that the only reason he's libating you and he's sacrificing to you and he's interceding to you is because you are the strongest baddie in all the land, and-
Christine: Hmm
David: ... if you take away and treat him differently than his sacrifices have asked, then he will stop worshiping you. He'll stop being loyal to you. He's gonna treat you like all the other pagans treat their gods, is that as soon as the gods abandon them, they abandon their gods, and he won't see you as good anymore. And that is just not what happens, which is, Job passes the test. [laughs] It's so amazing.
Christine: It's rough, but not before we read all about it and the agony he goes through.
David: No.
Christine: And just listening to you talk about that made me think how interesting and how it's so complex, but in a way, God acquiescing to Satan's desire to just put Job through the mill is offering Job a chance to prove himself, to prove Satan wrong.
David: Mm-hmm.
Christine: And-
David: It's giving a blameless, upright man an opportunity to put the accuser in his place, to conquer the accuser.
Christine: Yes, 'cause we know nothing is hidden from God. We know- That God knows how Job would react in any given circumstance and how he is going to react. And Satan just is out to destroy Job, which is what he's out to do for all of humanity. But God lets Satan kind of dig his own pit for himself. In a way, he's releasing Satan on Job, but he's also releasing Job on Satan.
David: Job on Satan. Yes, he really is. He is letting Satan set up a pit that he will fall into.
Christine: Yeah.
David: He's letting Satan set up a test that he will fail.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And he does it because he knows who Job is.
Christine: Yes.
David: And he knows Job can handle this. He knows that Job is the righteous sufferer who can persevere through Satan's test and destroy him.
Christine: Yes. And the painful question we want to ask is, but why would God do that?
David: Yeah.
Christine: And [sighs]
David: And then you have to read the end of the book where we just can't even ask questions that big. [laughs]
Christine: Yeah.
David: We can't handle smaller questions than that.
Christine: Yes.
David: And I know that that's the question everybody wants to ask, and we don't have an answer. We're not given one.
Christine: No. And we're wrestling with it, too.
David: Yeah. But I do think as we go and look at Adam and Jesus in this podcast, it will at least continue to round out that fight-
Christine: Yes
David: ... and that opportunity to destroy Satan through suffering.
Christine: Yes, and the glory that that means f- not just for God, but for humanity.
David: Yeah.
Christine: And somewhere beyond the veil of tears and pain, there is this glory that God is offering, and it's ultimately to crush Satan under your feet-
David: Yes
Christine: ... as Paul says at the very end of Romans. [laughs]
David: That's right.
Christine: And that's a big task. That's saying, "You can slay this thing, and I'm gonna let you do it."
David: Mm.
Christine: And that's such a high honor, but it doesn't come without scars and bludgeons.
David: No. When the knights ride out to go slay the dragon, they have to face many trials [laughs] and pains to conquer the beast, but they do it, and it's for their glory and for the honor of their king.
Christine: Yep, and it's to their glory that they vanquish it.
David: Yeah. [laughs] That's right.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And for the good of the world that the dragon's gone. [laughs]
Christine: Yeah, the land is healed. [laughs]
David: Okay, finishing up this passage here, verse 12, "Yahweh said to the accuser, 'Very well. All that he has is in your power. Only, do not stretch out your hand against him.' So the accuser went out from the presence of Yahweh." And so here we have famously the, quote-unquote, "leash put on Satan," the limit given to the accuser.
Christine: The hedge of protection around Job still exists.
David: It does still exist. It just got tighter right around his body.
Christine: That's right. Yeah. That's interesting.
David: But it reminds me of the... And it, and Job is going to talk about this a little bit, but it reminds me of Eden and creation again, where the seas of chaos that existed, the wild and waste that existed, aren't obliterated. They are given a limit.
Christine: That's right.
David: A shore exists.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And a vault exists.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And there is limits placed on chaos, not the obliteration of it. So even in Eden, we know that the garden, the cultivated land of the king priest Adam, was meant to continue to push against the wild suffering of the waves of chaos.
Christine: Yes.
David: That God from the beginning has had the plan to leash chaos, not obliterate it by himself, but to partner with humanity in conquering it.
Christine: Yes. 'Cause everyone knows God can slay a dragon, but God wants his kids to do it, too. [laughs]
David: Yeah.
Christine: That's a way to read Genesis 1. [laughs]
David: That's a way to read Genesis 1.
Christine: The sea creatures are limited by the shore 'cause God said, "Do not lay a hand on the mountains-"
David: That's right
Christine: ... as it were. And then in a way, there's this creature that slithers up into the garden from land or sea, it doesn't matter. It's still a serpent. It still doesn't belong in the garden, and the hedge kind of narrows, as it were, and there's a test there. Can you identify and reject what is not Edenic?
David: Yeah. God limits the evil and the chaos that was over the world to begin with, but then he partners with humanity to finish the job.
Christine: Yes.
David: That is Genesis 1. That's the story. So God's not doing anything here in Job that he wasn't doing in Genesis. And this continues in the test that Job is put through and the second test that Job is given, um, in the story. So we see here the suffering that comes upon everything that he has and owns and is over. His kingdom, it, it crumbles. And so verse 13, "One day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brother's house, a messenger came to Job and said, 'The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell on them and carried them off and killed the servants with the edge of the sword. I alone have escaped to tell you.' While he was speaking, another came and said, 'The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them. I alone have escaped to tell you.' While he was speaking, another came and said, 'The Chaldeans formed three columns, made a raid on the camels and carried them off and killed the servants with the edge of the sword. I alone have escaped to tell you.' While he was speaking, another came and said, 'Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the eldest brother's house, and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you.' Then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and worshiped. He said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be the name of Yahweh.' In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing."
Christine: That's really heavy, and it shows, among many things, the sheer mutiny Satan has for the righteous. How he wants to destroy Job just because he's good.
David: Hmm.
Christine: Like again, the Edenic parallel of it is good. In fact, it's very good. There's flourishing, there is a man acting like God on earth. Heaven and earth are paralleling each other in these different ways. There is feasting, there is sacrifice, there is wealth, servants, and Satan just comes and destroys it for no reason apparently-
David: Mm
Christine: ... other than he just doesn't, he calls good, bad.
David: Yeah.
Christine: And it's interesting how there are four types of attack here. There's the sword of two different raiding parties. There's fire, there is a mighty wind, and interestingly, the fourth plague, the wind strikes four corners and collapses. So there's, there's a lot going on there symbolically too. But there's this ultimate just stripping of everything that, that Job owns and has and loves.
David: Yeah. As we think about heaven and earth and the overlaps there, the plagues seem to mirror it-
Christine: Hmm
David: ... almost in an attempt for Satan to even confuse Job all the more.
Christine: Yeah.
David: That oh, the nations are against you. Here's these other nations, which is going to come back into play with Satan and his temptations of Jesus later-
Christine: Hmm
David: ... where he's gonna show how he has command over the nations-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... and he can send them to do the things that he will. And so the earth is against him, but also it seems like the heavens are against him.
Christine: Fire from heaven-
David: Fire from heaven
Christine: ... is a divine instrument of judgment.
David: That's right.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And then a great wind, a great spirit-
Christine: Yes
David: ... uh, this, this breath from heaven, which in Genesis made life.
Christine: Mm-hmm.
David: Now it's coming and it's bringing death. And it's these four corners, which is a picture of totality. It's a picture of the four corners of the earth.
Christine: Yes. It's the earth.
David: It's everything, all of Eden, the entire kingdom, Job's whole world is falling down around him, and it seems like heaven and earth are against him.
Christine: Yes.
David: And so it would be easy for him to say, "Yahweh's doing this," because fire from heaven, wind, like Yahweh should have control over these things, and he doesn't get away from it. He says, "Yahweh gave it all. Yahweh took it all away. Blessed, not cursed, be the name of Yahweh."
Christine: Yes. He does acknowledge that God is in control and that He let this happen, that He gave all these things, and He has taken them away, and he is blessed nonetheless.
David: Yeah.
Christine: He hasn't lost God even though he's lost everything else.
David: Yeah.
Christine: I just find it interesting that his response to having everything stripped away from him is to reduce himself even more. He tears his robe, so he strips his robes. He strips him of, himself of his hair, which is an act of mourning-
David: Mm
Christine: ... and grief, and he just confesses that this is actually who I am. This is how I came. This is how I'm going to leave. God gives things in the middle, and God takes away things in the middle. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
David: Yeah. He proves Satan wrong. He does conquer Satan's accusations.
Christine: He does. He doesn't even acknowledge Satan at all.
David: No.
Christine: Which is so interesting and fun, and like it's, he-
David: It's even more of a slight against him
Christine: ... yeah, he won't play into his hand, which is kind of something that Satan does in the garden. He pretends like God is not there.
David: Mm.
Christine: And he tries to-
David: Now Job is pretending [laughs] that Satan's not there
Christine: ... and Job is just completely ignoring Satan in the heavenly council, and is like, "God, th- th- it's just me and God, and it always was and will be, and blessed be God's name." And of course he's mourning and weeping. We're not gonna discredit that, and we'll see-
David: A lot of it
Christine: ... in chapter [laughs] three just how dejected he is. But in all this it says, "Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing."
David: Which was the question that Satan posited. He said-
Christine: Yeah
David: ... "If you take it all away, he's going to curse you-
Christine: Yes
David: ... because he only loves you because of the things y- you've given him."
Christine: Yes. And in a way, this is a story in and of itself, this whole first chapter, 'cause we have everything set up at the beginning, the challenge, the test, the trial, and then at the end Job seems to overcome the trial, like Satan defeated.
David: Yeah.
Christine: Great.
David: That is a, in a sense, a self-contained story.
Christine: It is.
David: Yeah.
Christine: Very much so.
David: There is a beginning, a middle, and an end-
Christine: Yes
David: ... and a resolution.
Christine: Yes.
David: And it proves the same point that the whole book proves.
Christine: Yes.
David: Job conquers Satan by blessing God through suffering.
Christine: Yes. But trials come in threes if this is an epic story, so we have one test that has been passed, but the second one is underfoot.
David: The second one is coming. This is chapter two. One day the heavenly beings, the sons of God, came to present themselves before Yahweh, and the accuser also came among them to present himself before Yahweh. Exact same language, I think, as the first.
Christine: I think so.
David: Yahweh said to the accuser the same thing, "Where have you come from?" The accuser answered Yahweh, "From going to and fro on the earth and walking up and down on it." Yahweh said to the accuser, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil." So, so far the same thing has been said between these two beings.
Christine: God loves Job.
David: God really loves Job.
Christine: He brags about him-
David: He does
Christine: ... in the heavenly family gathering.
David: And that's amazing-
Christine: [sighs]
David: ... that God would even think to brag about a human.
Christine: Yeah.
David: But He loves His people.
Christine: He loves Job.
David: Yeah. There's no one like him on earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you enticed me against him to destroy him for no reason. Then the accuser answered Yahweh, "Skin for skin. All that the man has he will give for his life, but stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face." Yahweh said to the accuser, "Very well. He is in your power. Only spare his life." And so we have this exchange repeated, but now the hedge gets even narrower. It's now just the nephesh, the life of Job. He has to remain a living being.
Christine: Yes.
David: But you can do anything to him.
Christine: Yeah.
David: The hedge of protection shrinks over his heartbeat, basically.
Christine: Yeah, which is a tight noose to be sure.
David: Yes. And God is bragging about Job. He knows he's blameless. He knows he still persists in his integrity, but the accuser's argument is, "Well, yeah, but he's comfortable enough, and anybody would, to save their own skin, they would risk everything else they own. But everyone's fundamentally selfish and just wants to live. But if you start taking away his health and start giving him pain, that's what people really care about, and that's what will make him curse you."
Christine: Yeah. It's, again, two things are surfacing in that for me. One is just how pitiless Satan is towards people.
David: Mm.
Christine: It wasn't enough for him to see Job's life absolutely ruined, for him to watch Job bury 10 children-
David: Mm
Christine: ... for him to watch Job crumble and just weep and grieve over the loss of all of his possessions. Satan wants to go after his very life and is asking God for the chance to do as much as he possibly can, and God lets him go up to a point. Again, the boundaries are there, and in some weird way it's, it's true what Satan says. Again, he's using truth in a very perverted way. It's true that a man's life is the best thing that he has, and that he will save that no matter what. You know, when, if we have to evacuate somewhere, we will leave everything behind in order to save our lives, and that's a good thing. That's a right and good thing to do. Satan is proposing that it is better to gain your life than lose your soul.
David: Yeah. That's a really interesting way to put it, that he is saying that anybody will give up anything, including the integrity of their soul, their allegiance to their God, to save their own neck.
Christine: Yeah.
David: Yeah, flipping the words of Jesus there. It, you know, it's better to lose your life and gain your soul. Satan's like, "No, people would give up their soul to keep their life safe."
Christine: Yes.
David: And so if you touch him, then all bets are off.
Christine: Yeah. Then he will join me in a sense. It's another challenge on Job's integrity and Job's love for God. It's essentially telling God that, "Your beloved doesn't really love you. Just see what happens when you attack his health." And the audacity, one, and the kind of implied demand that we have to test this theory is not that Satan can tie God's hands by any means, but there is a sense in which he is pulling all strings to ask God to let him do his absolute worst, and God cuts him off again at, to a certain point, and says, "He is to remain in the land of the living, but go ahead." The second test just seems that much harder for that reason.
David: Yeah. And we-
Christine: The ante is up.
David: Yeah, the ante is up, and the second test goes like this. "So the accuser went out from the presence of Yahweh and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself and sat among the ashes. Then his wife said to him, 'Do you still persist in your integrity?'" The thing that God just praised him for. [laughs] "'Curse God and die.' But he said to her, 'You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive good from God and not receive evil?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips."
Christine: Well, there are lots of Edenic-
David: Eden in, yeah [laughs]
Christine: ... parallels here once again. Do you wanna start?
David: Well, there's a woman who is kind of repeating the temptation of Satan.
Christine: Yes. That's sadly very much like Genesis 3. So we see Job's wife show up here for the first and only time, I guess. And she comes with kind of the same thing that Satan wants Job to do, and obviously she's grieving. She's lost 10 children as well. She's in distress. And it's just interesting that I find the broken pieces of pottery, I find it a very powerful image because Job is a broken man now.
David: Mm.
Christine: And he is, you know, we know God molded man from the dust of the earth, from clay, and we have this broken man now spending time scraping his broken body with broken pieces of clay. And his wife, who's supposed to be the one who gives him life, who's his, supposed to be his helper, especially in advancing the garden and spreading goodness, now comes and is like, "I want to quit. This isn't worth it, and why don't you just put yourself out of your misery and give up your integrity?" And Job passes this test, too, which I can't imagine a test harder than hearing that from [laughs] his own flesh and blood. But he resists her advice, saying that both good and evil, again, garden imagery, and now he knows evil, too, [laughs] in a very real way.
David: Mm. Oh, yeah. So this is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Christine: Yeah.
David: He knows-
Christine: Tov and ra is-
David: He knows tov and ra. He knows good and evil.
Christine: Yes.
David: We've seen the good that he's known. Look at all the flourishing that he began with.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And he received that from God.
Christine: Yes.
David: And now he knows ra. He knows bad. He knows evil.
Christine: Yeah.
David: And he is willing to let God do what he wants with those things and not attain it for himself-
Christine: Yes
David: ... and say, "Well, I'm, I'll take this, but not that."
Christine: Yeah. He refuses to stop up his priestly role between God and the rest of humanity-
David: Mm
Christine: ... which is something that sadly when Adam listened to Eve, he lost that relationship that he had with God, that Edenic priesthood, and that was because Satan worked through a woman at that point, too, to bring Adam down. And Satan is trying to do this again. He's trying to bring Job down by- inciting his wife now to precisely what Satan wants Job to do. And Job, much like maybe Adam should have, says, "No, this is not right. I'm still gonna remain pure before God." And we see that his purity, his insistence on trusting God and receiving from God whatever that might be, whether it's good or evil, it will result in his vindication. He will be able to restore his wife, his family, his possessions. He'll be able to restore Eden at the end, but he has to go through this very, very dark, dark season first.
David: Yeah. It's interesting how Satan, when he's given the right to come against Job's flesh, skin for skin, he does not only come after Job and giving him loathsome sores, and he becomes this broken clay scraping himself with broken clay, but he also comes after Job's body in the form of his own flesh in his wife.
Christine: Mm-hmm.
David: And not by necessarily afflicting her, though we don't know if there's something going on with her. There, there definitely might be.
Christine: Well, she lost her children, and there's-
David: She's gone
Christine: ... nothing worse than that, so.
David: Yeah, that's right. Her fruitful and multiplying has reversed. Eden for her has decayed. But yeah, Job is being tested by his own flesh in the form of his wife. And, um-
Christine: What we learn about Adam and Eve in Genesis makes me suspect that it's because God forbade Satan to take Job's life that his wife is untouched [laughs] 'cause she is his life. And this is me speculating. I'm just trying to go from Genesis knowledge to apply it to the rest, but, and there are lots of theories out there as to why not Job's wife? Well, first of all, she did lose all her children. That is the worst type of affliction. But also the fact that she is spared is I think like, well, they are one flesh, so he couldn't touch her. [laughs]
David: That's right. Yeah, that's absolutely right.
Christine: She's not much of a help, sadly, just like Eve wasn't much of a help in the garden. But we do see Job pass the test that Adam failed in the sense that he does not give in to the words of his wife. And Job does not hear from God, "Because you listened to your wife," which is sadly what Adam does hear from God, so.
David: Yeah. Okay, so we've got the two tests that Job has gone through, both of losing everything he has and now losing almost his very life, but still being in the land of the living, and, uh-
Christine: He passes both
David: ... being, being told that he's going to curse God, but he passes both. And in so doing, he triumphs over Satan, and Satan ends up falling into the accusation that he set up for himself, that he thought it would vindicate him and disprove Job's loyalty to God. But instead, it only proved Job's loyalty to God is, is stronger than almost death.
Christine: Yeah. It showed what Job was made of.
David: Yeah.
Christine: Like, Satan had to acknowledge what Job was actually made of, the, the knight was able to prove himself. But this is only the first two trials.
David: It is. So we're going to put a pause here because we've got a third trial to talk about with when the accusers come to Earth. We also need to go all the way back to Genesis 3 and actually walk through that. We've been alluding to it a lot, but there's a lot to unpack there. And then we need to go forward to Jesus' encounter with the accuser in a wilderness place-
Christine: Oh, my
David: ... and see how all of it goes together. So thank you all so much for listening. This has been so great, and we will see you next time.
Christine: [outro music] Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel creates short films, devotionals, and podcasts like this one. Everything we make is free because of generous supporters like you. To see our resources, visit spokengospel.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening. See you next time. [outro music]
