The Book of Job shows us, as no other book, how God controls all things to accomplish His purposes of blessing for His own. The complex way God blends together the actions of Satan, Job’s wife, his three friends and humble Elihu to bring about His purposes is a witness to His great power, wisdom and understanding. Job was a special object of the favor of God, and the book is given as a demonstration of how the trials through which He puts us are for our good and blessing. The best blessing in reading the book is not found in understanding all the complex discussions, but in seeing the end of the ways of God with Job — that He is merciful. We believe the Lord has given us this book to help us as we go through trials.
Satan’s Work
Satan is the first agent used. Jehovah calls to his attention the perfect and upright life of Job. Satan suggested that Job was pious because of the protection and blessing that God gave him and promptly proposed a plan which he thought would cause Job to curse God. The Lord Jehovah allows this with certain restrictions that would not allow him to go beyond God’s reason for the trial. Satan may be an agent in our trials, but God is over all, and Satan cannot go beyond what God allows. Satan immediately went to extreme measures of death and destruction, bodily sickness and suffering, seeking to disprove what God had said to him and to cause Job to fail. There was no care for the well-being of Job with Satan, nor did his terrible ways accomplish his prediction. Job maintained his integrity and did not curse God. It would seem that Satan’s final effort was to sow a seed of distrust or despair in the heart of Job’s wife, causing her to say, “Curse God, and die.”
But the Lord had other reasons for allowing Satan to do what He did. He desired the good and blessing of Job. He saw something in Job that was a hindrance to that blessing. The blessing that the Lord had in store for Job was much better than what Job could obtain by his own righteousness. This plan necessitated a trial to cause Job to cease from his own righteousness and cling to God alone. The three friends then are the agents used by God to continue the trial.
Job’s Three Friends
After Satan finished all he could do, Job’s friends came to comfort him. But instead of being a direct help to Job by leading him to God, they use their own experience, logic and tradition. Their efforts to teach him why all these things had happened, being off the mark, could only lead Job down a path of resistance and self-justification. Though their words are often true in themselves, they missed the mark of the reason for the trial. The mighty work of God in our lives is too great to be explained by human understanding. We must go into the sanctuary to learn why God allows trials.
God used the three friends to bring out of Job what no one else could see. This was necessary to bring out what needed to be exposed and judged. Job in his defense against their wrong accusations wrongly attributed injustice to God (ch. 27:2). For Job always to seek to be upright and righteous would have been right, but to defend himself was wrong. God alone is our judge. No man placed on trial is at the same time the evaluator or judge. When we begin to defend ourselves we are sure to err, although it is especially difficult not to defend one’s position when the accusations are false. God was faithful to have on hand a man that would properly represent Him at the right moment.
Elihu’s Faithful Words
Usually, it is only after we have ceased talking that we begin to learn, and Elihu wisely waits for that moment, before beginning to speak. He justifies God first of all and then points out the errors of Job and his friends. He does not take a position of superiority and hardness, but speaks as one made of clay. He is careful to not accuse Job of the unseen things in his heart; rather, he takes up only what each one had said and faithfully speaks the truth. After giving Job opportunity to respond, Elihu finishes the discourse with an admonition to fear God. He truly brings Job into the presence of God, and then he, too, is silent.
The Lord then takes up where Elihu left off. He brings Job into a fuller understanding of who He is and of His great power. Job recognizes his own vile condition after the first discourse. After the second, Job sees God as He is, and he is restored to Jehovah.
The great purpose of God to bless could then be graciously poured out in Job’s life. Job receives double all that he had lost through the trial. These things that were “written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope” (Rom. 15:44For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. (Romans 15:4)). “Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (James 5:1111Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. (James 5:11)).
D. C. Buchanan