2:1 Echoing the setting of the first heavenly chamber conversation, this verse narrows in on Satan. Whereas both this verse and 1:6 begin, “Again [“Now” in 1:6] there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord,” this verse ends, “and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord” (cf. “and Satan also came among them”; 1:6).

2:2–3 The Lord’s conversation with Satan begins with identical lines from their first conversation (cf. 1:7). The Lord asks, “From where have you come?” and Satan answers, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it” (2:2). Then the Lord asks, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” (1:8; 2:3a). What is new is what is said next: to his question above, God adds a commendation of Job (“He still holds fast his integrity”) and a critique of Satan (“although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason”; v. 3b). The word “me” opens afresh the mystery of the problem of evil. It is clear that Satan is responsible for the attacks upon Job’s family and flesh. The blood is on his hands. However, here God acknowledges his sovereignty over all, and Job later speaks of receiving both “good” and “evil” from God (v. 10).

2:4–5 In Ephesians 5:29, Paul points out that “no one ever hated his own flesh.” Our natural disposition is to protect and love our bodies. So Satan’s strategy here is smart: self-preservation, aligned with self-love, is the angle of attack he takes—“Skin for skin!” (Job 2:4). The loss of wealth, children, assets, and financial legacy have not moved Job from praising God to cursing him. But, Satan surmises, “All that a man has he will give for his life” (v. 4b). That is, Satan is asking God for the green light to turn Job’s body black and blue—and red. He thinks Job will then pause in his praise (“he will curse you to your face”; v. 5), or, to continue the metaphor, turn yellow. He will cower! And then he will curse.

2:6–7 The light turns green. God consents (“Behold, he is in your hand”), with one condition (“only spare his life”; v. 6). Then Satan attacks, striking Job “with loathsome sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (v. 7). Black. Blue. Red. But, as we will see next, not yellow!

2:8–10 Job’s initial reaction is both realistic and resilient: “He took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.” Why does he sit on ashes? He sits on ashes to symbolize his mortality (“ashes to ashes, dust to dust”)47 and to show how he feels. He wants to die (to become ashes sooner than later), which is precisely what he says in chapter 3. And because he is not dying anytime soon, or at least not right now, he seeks to soothe himself from the itchiness of the awful and all-intrusive sores. “He took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself.” What a realistic picture. What an awful picture. We are told in 2:12 that his friends do not even recognize him when they arrive on the scene. The illness has distorted his face, his whole body.

But as realistic as Job’s response is, it is also, and once again, amazingly resilient. His resilience first shows itself in his silence. In fact, 2:8–3:26 is structured around the themes of silence and speech. Job is silent (2:8), then Job’s wife and Job speak (vv. 9–10), Job’s friends are silent (vv. 11–13), and then Job speaks (ch. 3). And then, we might even add, from chapter 3 to chapter 38 there is another silence—God’s. He says nothing, and the silence is deafening to Job.

Job’s response is resilient. On the ash heap, he does not blame others for his troubles, and most importantly, he does not curse God. He sits in silence. But this silence is broken by his wife’s voice. When we read, “Then his wife said to him” (2:9), we might hope for soothing words. Relief is at hand. His wife is alive! She is now there with him. She will hold his hand, wipe his wounds, console his soul, point her husband heavenward to their wise and good God. But instead she questions her husband’s pigheaded piety (“Do you still hold fast [to] your integrity?”) and offers a simple solution (“Curse God and die”; v. 9b). Her solution makes sense from a human perspective. She has lost her ten children. Her husband, “the greatest of all the people of the east” (1:3), is sitting not upon a throne but upon an ash heap (2:8). She believes in God; she does not doubt his existence and certainly not his power. So, with her advice she is saying, “Let us get this over with. Stop playing Mr. Pious. It is time to take matters into your own hands. Stop blessing God’s name—curse him. Because as soon as you curse him, he will destroy you. You will be dead, and death is better than this, right?” Satan may have slithered away from the scene, but this “devil’s advocate,” as Augustine calls her, echoes his voice from 1:11.

Satan’s test was tough, but this test might be tougher. We ought not underestimate just how tempting her suggestion is. A man often feels most helpless when his helpmate helps not. But Job does not eat from the fruit she offers. He snubs Satan’s supporter: “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak” (2:10). In other words, or to put in our own context, he says, “You are thinking and speaking not like a believer would but like one of the godless who thinks that the god-thing is okay if everything is going your way. No way, wife. Stop thinking this way. Close your mouth, and listen: ‘Shall we [notice that he includes her] receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?’ (v. 10).” Put differently, “Keep trusting God through these incomprehensible cruelties.”

After this incredibly wise and pastoral response, the narrator jumps in and makes sure we applaud Job: “In all this Job did not sin with his lips” (v. 10). This comment makes the list of the top ten understatements of the Bible. Job’s not sinning with his lips here was one of the hardest things to do in human history.