World English Bible
- Again, on the day when God’s sons came to present themselves before the LORD, Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.
- The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, and said, “From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”
- The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil. He still maintains his integrity, although you incited me against him, to ruin him without cause.”
- Satan answered the LORD, and said, “Skin for skin. Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.
- But stretch out your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face.”
- The LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life.”
- So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful sores from the sole of his foot to his head.
- He took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself with, and he sat among the ashes.
- Then his wife said to him, “Do you still maintain your integrity? Renounce God, and die.”
- But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job didn’t sin with his lips.
- Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him.
- When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky.
- So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
Job 2 — Integrity in the Ash Heap
The scene repeats: “again there was a day.” The Accuser (Hebrew: ha-satan, “the prosecutor”) presses the test: “skin for skin”—an ancient barter proverb, wagering that bodily pain will buy out loyalty. Job’s sores drive him to the ash heap, likely the city dump outside the gate; archaeology and texts suggest refuse fires, shards, and social exclusion gathered there. He scrapes himself with a potsherd—poverty’s tool in a place of waste. The prose is spare, yet every detail hints at death-in-life.
Job’s wife speaks the grief of a bereaved mother and ruined household: “Bless God and die,” where the Hebrew barakh (“bless”) is again a bitter euphemism for “curse” (as in ch. 1). Job’s reply is not stoic coldness but covenant realism: “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil [ra‘—calamity]?” (English Standard Version). Calvin hears in this a bracing submission to providence; Gregory the Great praises Job’s reverence but notes the text’s careful line—he “did not sin with his lips”—leaving room for the deep wrestling to come.
The friends arrive rightly: they see, weep, tear garments, cast dust, and keep seven days of silence—near the pattern of shivah. Their quiet is their best theology. Only later will their words outrun their wisdom. For now, the church learns presence before prescription.
Cross-references: - James 5:11; 1 Peter 4:12–19 - Lamentations 2:10; Genesis 50:10 - Isaiah 45:7; 1 Samuel 3:18; Psalm 62
Hymn for meditation: “Whate’er My God Ordains Is Right.”
Prayer: Holy Father, meet us on the ash heap. Teach us to receive from your hand without bitterness, to keep silence where words fail, and to hold fast our integrity in the dark. Grant compassion like Job’s friends at first, and the patience of Job to the end. Through Jesus, our suffering and risen Lord. Amen.