But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
Satan charged that human loyalty to God was bought by prosperity and would turn to open defiance if possessions were taken away. God answered by placing what Job had in Satan's power under strict limit, sparing his life, showing the destroyer's power acts only by permission within bounds set by One mightier. The losses and bodily affliction that followed were Satan's work overruled by God for mercy, proving suffering is not always punishment for sin nor proof of great guilt. Job denied the charge by holding his integrity without murmuring though stripped and diseased and abhorred, and was rewarded as a witness that faith can rest in God in the darkest hour. The same accuser still charges the faithful before God, demands them into his hands and works through the elements and through wicked men as far as allowed, to destroy faith and allegiance.
Satan's Charge and Permission
The verse is Satan's claim that Job's loyalty depends on prosperity, and that if his possessions are struck he will abandon integrity and curse God openly to His face. It frames the losses that follow as a test of whether faith endures when prosperity is removed. The charge is scornful: that Job fears God for naught, and only because a hedge has been made about him and about his house and about all that he has on every side. It demands that God touch all that he has, and joins to this the further claim that touching his bone and his flesh will make him curse God to His face, to which God answers by placing all that Job has in Satan's power and then by placing Job himself in his hand with the command to save his life.
The verse reveals Satan as a real, active, personal being, the originator of evil and the enemy of God and man, speaking directly to God with malicious design against Job's innocence and happiness. His demand to touch all that Job has shows the connection of the visible world with the invisible world and the interweaving of evil angels with human history, while punishment is prepared for him as the originator of iniquity. His power to afflict is not absolute but is limited and controlled by One mightier than he, so that he can act only by permission. God ordinarily shields His creatures and hedges them from the destroyer, setting bounds and restraining Satan so that he cannot do all that he wants, even to help those devoted to his service.
That restraint is illustrated at Mount Carmel, where Satan gladly would have sent lightning to kindle the sacrifice for the prophets of Baal. None of his devices could convey one spark to Baal's altar, because Jehovah sets bounds to Satan and restrains his power.
Meaning of Job's Suffering
Suffering in Job's case was inflicted by Satan and overruled by God for purposes of mercy, proving that not all suffering comes from a perverted or sinful life. When permitted, Satan swiftly swept away flocks and herds, servants, houses, homes and children, one trouble succeeding another as in a moment, broke family ties and took the children, and for a time covered the body with loathsome sores and bodily infirmities that made him suffer greatly. He so contends for the usefulness and lives of God's servants, exercising power upon them through bodily infirmities to drive them from the work.
God gave the history as a lesson to prevent regarding disease and death as punishment arbitrarily inflicted by God for sin or regarding a great sufferer as a great sinner. Job's friends repeated the error by trying to make him admit his course caused his afflictions and by seeking to prove him guilty and deserving of punishment, thereby putting a grievous test upon him, placing God in a false light and misrepresenting Him. Israel did not understand the lesson, and the same error for which the friends of Job were reproved was repeated by the Jews in rejecting Christ and held by Christ's disciples toward the man blind from birth.
The trial was God proving, testing and trying Job, permitting Satan to try confidence, faith and firmness to the uttermost. It reveals what a person really is, and when endured it purifies as in a furnace and brings forth the tried better fitted for God's work, as illustrated by Elder Butler's own trials. Even in allowing such affliction to hinder His servants, God limits Satan's power and may use the trial to purify those who endure.
God found in Job steadfast integrity without murmuring and unbelief: Job denied the false charge and did not swerve from loyalty. Though deprived of worldly possessions and so afflicted in body that he was abhorred by relatives and friends, he maintained his integrity, and God rewarded His faithful servant. He stands as one of God's appointed witnesses who exposed himself to reproach and persecution for truth's sake, and his steadfastness bears witness to the faithfulness of God's promises, to His abiding presence and sustaining grace, and to the power of faith to withstand the powers of the world, to rest in God in the darkest hour and to feel, however sorely tried and tempest-tossed, that the Father is at the helm.
Warning for God's People
The verse means that Satan accuses the faithful before God, watching for every misstep to use their faults against them and presenting the very sins he tempted them to commit in the most exaggerated light. He represents them as just as deserving as himself of exclusion from God's favor, declares that God cannot in justice forgive their sins and yet destroy him and his angels, claims them as his prey, and demands that they be given into his hands to destroy. The Lord permits him to try them to the uttermost, so that their confidence in God and their faith and firmness are severely tested. He endeavors to terrify them with the thought that their cases are hopeless and the stain of their defilement will never be washed away, hoping to destroy their faith so that they will yield to his temptations and turn from allegiance to God.
Satan's demand to touch all Job had, followed by the swift sweeping away of flocks and herds, servants, houses, homes and children, one trouble succeeding another as in a moment, proves that he works through the elements to garner unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature and uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows, while God ordinarily shields His creatures and hedges them in from the power of the destroyer. He has control of all whom God does not especially guard, favoring and prospering some to further his own designs and bringing trouble upon others while leading men to believe that God is afflicting them.
Because the Christian world has shown contempt for the law of Jehovah, the Lord withdraws His blessings from the earth and removes His protecting care from those who are rebelling against His law and teaching and forcing others to do the same. The same destroying power, while appearing as a great physician who can heal all maladies, will bring disease and disaster until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work in accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in tornadoes, hailstorms, tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves and earthquakes, sweeping away the ripening harvest so that famine and distress follow and imparting to the air a deadly taint so that thousands perish by pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous until destruction is upon the inhabitants of the world and the beasts of the field groan and the earth languishes.
As when Satan moved Esau to march against Jacob, so in the time of trouble Satan will stir up the wicked to destroy the little company who keep the commandments of God, though holy angels guard them and their sins have been pardoned and their cases decided in the sanctuary above. Satan's indignation against God's servant being permitted to appear warns that such violence may recur as God's work advances. The same letting loose can come upon others, and when Satan has special power it exposes lack of self-knowledge through jealousy, fault-finding, and joining in accusation even against a diseased and care-worn sufferer.
The heavenly conflict over accusation and deception is repeated on earth when Satan works through people who profess to believe the truth, leading them to accuse others and spread lies. This warns believers not to give him such an opening through crooked conduct or disunity.
Satan charged that human loyalty to God was bought by prosperity and would turn to open defiance if possessions were taken away. God answered by placing what Job had in Satan's power under strict limit, sparing his life, showing the destroyer's power acts only by permission within bounds set by One mightier. The losses and bodily affliction that followed were Satan's work overruled by God for mercy, proving suffering is not always punishment for sin nor proof of great guilt. Job denied the charge by holding his integrity without murmuring though stripped and diseased and abhorred, and was rewarded as a witness that faith can rest in God in the darkest hour. The same accuser still charges the faithful before God, demands them into his hands and works through the elements and through wicked men as far as allowed, to destroy faith and allegiance.
Satan's Charge and Permission
The verse is Satan's claim that Job's loyalty depends on prosperity, and that if his possessions are struck he will abandon integrity and curse God openly to His face. It frames the losses that follow as a test of whether faith endures when prosperity is removed. The charge is scornful: that Job fears God for naught, and only because a hedge has been made about him and about his house and about all that he has on every side. It demands that God touch all that he has, and joins to this the further claim that touching his bone and his flesh will make him curse God to His face, to which God answers by placing all that Job has in Satan's power and then by placing Job himself in his hand with the command to save his life.
The verse reveals Satan as a real, active, personal being, the originator of evil and the enemy of God and man, speaking directly to God with malicious design against Job's innocence and happiness. His demand to touch all that Job has shows the connection of the visible world with the invisible world and the interweaving of evil angels with human history, while punishment is prepared for him as the originator of iniquity. His power to afflict is not absolute but is limited and controlled by One mightier than he, so that he can act only by permission. God ordinarily shields His creatures and hedges them from the destroyer, setting bounds and restraining Satan so that he cannot do all that he wants, even to help those devoted to his service.
That restraint is illustrated at Mount Carmel, where Satan gladly would have sent lightning to kindle the sacrifice for the prophets of Baal. None of his devices could convey one spark to Baal's altar, because Jehovah sets bounds to Satan and restrains his power.
Meaning of Job's Suffering
Suffering in Job's case was inflicted by Satan and overruled by God for purposes of mercy, proving that not all suffering comes from a perverted or sinful life. When permitted, Satan swiftly swept away flocks and herds, servants, houses, homes and children, one trouble succeeding another as in a moment, broke family ties and took the children, and for a time covered the body with loathsome sores and bodily infirmities that made him suffer greatly. He so contends for the usefulness and lives of God's servants, exercising power upon them through bodily infirmities to drive them from the work.
God gave the history as a lesson to prevent regarding disease and death as punishment arbitrarily inflicted by God for sin or regarding a great sufferer as a great sinner. Job's friends repeated the error by trying to make him admit his course caused his afflictions and by seeking to prove him guilty and deserving of punishment, thereby putting a grievous test upon him, placing God in a false light and misrepresenting Him. Israel did not understand the lesson, and the same error for which the friends of Job were reproved was repeated by the Jews in rejecting Christ and held by Christ's disciples toward the man blind from birth.
The trial was God proving, testing and trying Job, permitting Satan to try confidence, faith and firmness to the uttermost. It reveals what a person really is, and when endured it purifies as in a furnace and brings forth the tried better fitted for God's work, as illustrated by Elder Butler's own trials. Even in allowing such affliction to hinder His servants, God limits Satan's power and may use the trial to purify those who endure.
God found in Job steadfast integrity without murmuring and unbelief: Job denied the false charge and did not swerve from loyalty. Though deprived of worldly possessions and so afflicted in body that he was abhorred by relatives and friends, he maintained his integrity, and God rewarded His faithful servant. He stands as one of God's appointed witnesses who exposed himself to reproach and persecution for truth's sake, and his steadfastness bears witness to the faithfulness of God's promises, to His abiding presence and sustaining grace, and to the power of faith to withstand the powers of the world, to rest in God in the darkest hour and to feel, however sorely tried and tempest-tossed, that the Father is at the helm.
Warning for God's People
The verse means that Satan accuses the faithful before God, watching for every misstep to use their faults against them and presenting the very sins he tempted them to commit in the most exaggerated light. He represents them as just as deserving as himself of exclusion from God's favor, declares that God cannot in justice forgive their sins and yet destroy him and his angels, claims them as his prey, and demands that they be given into his hands to destroy. The Lord permits him to try them to the uttermost, so that their confidence in God and their faith and firmness are severely tested. He endeavors to terrify them with the thought that their cases are hopeless and the stain of their defilement will never be washed away, hoping to destroy their faith so that they will yield to his temptations and turn from allegiance to God.
Satan's demand to touch all Job had, followed by the swift sweeping away of flocks and herds, servants, houses, homes and children, one trouble succeeding another as in a moment, proves that he works through the elements to garner unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature and uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows, while God ordinarily shields His creatures and hedges them in from the power of the destroyer. He has control of all whom God does not especially guard, favoring and prospering some to further his own designs and bringing trouble upon others while leading men to believe that God is afflicting them.
Because the Christian world has shown contempt for the law of Jehovah, the Lord withdraws His blessings from the earth and removes His protecting care from those who are rebelling against His law and teaching and forcing others to do the same. The same destroying power, while appearing as a great physician who can heal all maladies, will bring disease and disaster until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work in accidents and calamities by sea and by land, in great conflagrations, in tornadoes, hailstorms, tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves and earthquakes, sweeping away the ripening harvest so that famine and distress follow and imparting to the air a deadly taint so that thousands perish by pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous until destruction is upon the inhabitants of the world and the beasts of the field groan and the earth languishes.
As when Satan moved Esau to march against Jacob, so in the time of trouble Satan will stir up the wicked to destroy the little company who keep the commandments of God, though holy angels guard them and their sins have been pardoned and their cases decided in the sanctuary above. Satan's indignation against God's servant being permitted to appear warns that such violence may recur as God's work advances. The same letting loose can come upon others, and when Satan has special power it exposes lack of self-knowledge through jealousy, fault-finding, and joining in accusation even against a diseased and care-worn sufferer.
The heavenly conflict over accusation and deception is repeated on earth when Satan works through people who profess to believe the truth, leading them to accuse others and spread lies. This warns believers not to give him such an opening through crooked conduct or disunity.