Job
Summary
Job Chapter 1 introduces Job, a blameless and upright man of immense wealth and family. In a heavenly scene, God points out Job’s integrity to the adversary, who challenges that Job only serves God for his blessings. God allows the adversary to test Job by stripping away his possessions and children in a single day of tragedy. Despite the devastating loss, Job remains faithful, falling to the ground in worship and declaring that God gives and takes away. This chapter establishes the central theme of the book: the testing of a righteous man’s faith in the face of unexplained suffering.
In the land of Uz there lived a man named Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and turned away from evil.
He had seven sons and three daughters,
and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred female donkeys. He also had a very large number of servants, and was the most influential man among all the people of the East.
His sons used to take turns holding banquets in their homes, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.
When a cycle of banquets was finished, Job would send for them and purify them. He would rise early in the morning and offer a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, "Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." This was Job’s regular custom.
One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and the adversary also came among them.
The LORD said to the adversary, "Where have you come from?" He answered, "From roaming through the earth and walking back and forth in it."
Then the LORD said to the adversary, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."
"Does Job fear God for nothing?" the adversary replied.
"Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land."
"But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."
The LORD said to the adversary, "Very well, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger." Then the adversary went out from the presence of the LORD.
One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house,
a messenger came to Job and said, "The oxen were ploughing and the donkeys were grazing nearby,"
"and the Sabeans attacked and carried them off. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!"
While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived and said, "The fire of God fell from the heavens and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!"
"Yet I am not silenced by the darkness, by the thick darkness that covers my face."
While he was still speaking, yet another messenger arrived and said, "Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house,"
"Surely its life withers away, and from the soil other plants grow."
At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship
and said: "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave [1], and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD."
In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
"He pulls it out of his back, the glittering point from his liver. Terrors will come over him;"