This is crucial to the story: We know what is going on in both settings, but the characters on earth do not. All they can see is what's happening on earth. All Job knows is that he has lost his livestock, his wealth, his servants, and his children. We wait to see his response.

He grieves. He worships. He falls to the ground. He cries, "May the name of the LORD be praised." In all this, he "did not sin." We switch back to the upper stage for one more brief conversation. At first glance, the action in heaven looks very strange. It looks like a cosmic wager between God and Satan, where God uses Job and his family as pawns to win a bet. But it's not.

The key question on the upper stage — in fact, the key question to the whole book — comes when Satan asks, "Does Job fear God for nothing?"

In other words, Satan is saying, "Job is devoted to you and worships you because it is in his self-interest. Quid pro quo." Satan is charging God with being naive. "You think Job loves you. The truth is, he loves you the way children love the ice cream man; the way aging actresses love Botox. Turn off the faucet of blessing and watch how fast he turns off the faucet of devotion."

The question is, can a human being hold on to God in the face of suffering? After all, suffering is the test of love. So Job gets hit with a second wave of trouble. This time there are some subtle differences in his response. He does not fall to the ground in worship. He does not say, "The name of the LORD be praised."

He goes to sit on an ash heap at the town dump. Maybe it is an act of grieving. Maybe he is being isolated because his skin condition — part of his suffering — could be leprosy.

Job's wife says, "Curse God and die!" This cannot be encouraging to Job. This does not sound like Dale Carnegie. But Job's wife, too, has lost all she had, including her children. She will now have to care for a horribly diseased husband until he dies, then she will be left alone and destitute. She gives voice to thoughts that have surely occurred to Job.

Job doesn't curse God. But notice what he says: "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" He is struggling to understand God now. Is God the kind of person who sends evil? Is God really good?

The writer says, "in all this, Job did not sin in what he said." After the first wave, the text simply says, "in all this Job did not sin."

So now there is a little qualification. "Job did not sin in what he said. " In his heart, Job has begun to struggle.

Friends in Winter

Then Job's friends hear about all the troubles that have come upon him — Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, Zophar the Naamathite. (Not mentioned is Dadgum the termite.) These friends meet together to go and sympathize with Job and give him comfort.

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