00:00:00:19 – 00:00:28:31
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Happy Monday of Holy Week. Hope that you’re doing well and appreciate your time with us. We are continuing in the book of job here in the second chapter, just starting the second chapter. In the aftermath of job’s first round of suffering. Job has maintained, his faithfulness. God has been proven correct.

00:00:28:39 – 00:01:12:54
Clint Loveall
We’ve been told as we closed chapter one that in all of these things, job did not charge God with wrongdoing, nor did he sin with his mouth. Now that brings us to the the second, moment where we we leave the earthly realm. We leave job for a second, and we travel back to this heavenly setting. We assume it doesn’t say that speaks specifically, but we have another moment where God, entertaining the holy hosts, has a conversation with the Satan or Satan, as it’s often translated.

00:01:12:55 – 00:01:36:19
Clint Loveall
So, I’ll read through this and we’ll come back and we’ll work our way through it. One day, when the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and the Satan also came with them to present himself before the Lord. The Lord said to Satan, where have you come from? Satan answered the Lord, from going to and fro on the earth, from walking up and down.

00:01:36:21 – 00:01:57:07
Clint Loveall
The Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant job? There’s no one like him on the earth, a blameless, upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity. Although you incited me against him to destroy him for no reason. Then Satan answered the Lord, skin for skin. All that people have, they will give to save their lives.

00:01:57:12 – 00:02:18:11
Clint Loveall
But stretch out your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face. The Lord said to Satan, very well, he’s in your power. Only spare his life. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and inflicted loathsome sores on job from the sole, his foot to the crown of his head.

00:02:18:16 – 00:02:45:52
Clint Loveall
Job took a pot shirt with which to scrape himself, and he sat among the ashes. Then his wife said to him, do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die. But he said to her, you speak as a foolish woman would speak, shall receive good from the hand of God, and not receive bad. In all this job did not sin in what he said.

00:02:45:57 – 00:03:17:17
Clint Loveall
So a very similar scene to what we have already had a nearly verbatim conversation with the with the difference that God here recognizing that this is the follow up from a previous time, says a strange thing. Have you considered Jobe? He still persists in his integrity, though. You incited me against him to destroy him for no reason.

00:03:17:22 – 00:03:46:25
Clint Loveall
And again, this is a troubling phrase to come from the mouth of God. And I would only say that that is not a typical of the book of Job. The narration here is to move the story forward. I, I don’t think, as some have tried to read this, this is God saying he got tricked. I don’t think this is God claiming it.

00:03:46:30 – 00:04:14:20
Clint Loveall
He is guilty or he is wrong. It’s just simply the conversation that, hey, you, you let me. You talked me into doing these things or I agreed to let you do these things. And then it moves the story. But I, I think the idea that God gets manipulated here, Michael, would be I I’m I’m certainly no expert in Hebrew, but it it would be problematic.

00:04:14:20 – 00:04:21:54
Clint Loveall
And I think many scholars would bring that up. And I feel like maybe I, I lean toward their opinion.

00:04:21:59 – 00:04:58:51
Michael Gewecke
The fact here, Clint, that this second encounter only intensifies our difficulty with processing what happened in the first encounter. I do think makes this conversation very timely because we struggled as we read through chapter one with the implications of the great cost that was taken from job’s life. And it seemed in that first encounter, almost at least as we have it translated in English, it sounded almost flippant.

00:04:58:57 – 00:05:27:45
Michael Gewecke
The kind of thing like, I bet you can’t drive that car over that thing. And in this case, it cost a man his children, right? It cost him his property, his wealth, his status. And now, when we come here, I think that this takes away maybe some of the explanations that we would have liked to have leaned on, because I think ultimately, the author is setting it up the same way that we had before.

00:05:27:50 – 00:05:52:53
Michael Gewecke
One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves. For what? Remember this story to start off with this. There once was a time and a place long time ago type situation. Now, the second time we have a one day, another concrete moment. And interestingly, the Lord asked Satan a question which the reader would be rightly, I think, to assume God knows the answer.

00:05:53:06 – 00:06:15:23
Michael Gewecke
Where have you been? We’ve already had this encounter. Where? Where have you been? Accuser and then God does it again. Well, have you considered my servant job? There’s no one, no one on earth at all who is blameless and upright, who fears the Lord, turns away from evil. And by the way, he still persists in his integrity.

00:06:15:23 – 00:06:44:40
Michael Gewecke
And in English you see that word integrity that matters as we get to the end of this section. But integrity. Although you incited me against him to destroy him for no reason, that that here suggests that an ideal was given to God. As you were saying before a deal was given to God and God saying, oh, and by the way, the evidence was exactly as what I said it would be, which I think is an important takeaway for Jobe.

00:06:44:40 – 00:07:10:30
Michael Gewecke
I think this book wants us to know God was right, that God rightly predicted what job’s response would be. The really disturbing undertone underneath this, which we just have to name, is that the reality is, the way that God would be proved right would be at the expense of the one who God was claiming that job would be faithful, right?

00:07:10:31 – 00:07:39:05
Michael Gewecke
It’s job’s faithfulness. Job’s integrity is it’s job’s faith in God, which is the thing that is being asked of him in this test that is being incited. That is the the moment where job, I think, is really honest with us, that it’s not just job’s character, which the reader is going to be questioning, it’s also God’s character. And that, I think, is often very uncomfortable for us as readers.

00:07:39:05 – 00:07:51:16
Michael Gewecke
But I would argue that God’s character is going to be questioned explicitly in the book to come. And so therefore it’s setting out a theme that we’re going to see woven throughout this text.

00:07:51:21 – 00:08:21:14
Clint Loveall
I think a couple of interesting points here in this second conversation. It is now the aftermath of the test that God agreed to let Satan give job. And it is important that job that God says of job this time, the exact thing that he said of job last time he there is no one like him on the earth.

00:08:21:14 – 00:08:54:21
Clint Loveall
He is a blameless, upright man who fears God and turns away. Now. Priest suffering. That is still a wonderful thing. But in the aftermath of the suffering, it’s a vindication of God’s previous judgment upon job. His his assessment of job. Job is who God said he was, even though you led me to let him suffer, he is that he is what God claimed.

00:08:54:21 – 00:09:23:02
Clint Loveall
He was righteous and blameless and does not turn away from God, but in fact turns away from evil. So God is proven right here. And I think, I think you’re correct about that, Michael. I think that matters. But the second thing that is interesting, and I think this is a characteristic of this book, this book makes no particular effort to let God off the hook.

00:09:23:02 – 00:09:23:35
Michael Gewecke
Yeah.

00:09:23:40 – 00:09:53:12
Clint Loveall
God looks here unflinchingly at the suffering Jobe has experienced and and says, you led me to inside him. And he maintains his integrity. He he stays pure. He he stays whole. He’s not been divided. He’s not cursed. He’s not sinned. He’s done those things even in spite of the suffering that I allowed you to bring into his life.

00:09:53:16 – 00:10:23:01
Clint Loveall
And I think we’re. Anyone else writing this? We would be naturally inclined to try and put a hedge around God to say, oh, yeah, this is the devil’s fault. This is Satan’s fault. This is something else that this book does not does not do that. Now, that raises some very uncomfortable questions and some deep troubles of interpretation. But I appreciate about the book that it as you said, it lays out all the characters and says, here’s what happened.

00:10:23:06 – 00:10:34:28
Clint Loveall
Now let’s see where it goes. And there’s something there’s something difficult in that, but there’s also something profound in that.

00:10:34:33 – 00:11:14:58
Michael Gewecke
Because when the story progresses and we begin to see the extent of the suffering, we go on here. Verse four, we see the way that the accuser makes the argument. Well, ultimately you’ve not gone far enough. You you’ve gotten around job, but ultimately his character and integrity is rooted in whether or not he himself is affected. So then when God says in verse six, very well, he’s in your power, only spare his life.

00:11:15:03 – 00:11:42:58
Michael Gewecke
He goes and inflicts these loathsome sores on job for the soul of his foot to the crown of his head. And note that the the source of skin are not just an internal affliction, they’re an external affliction. Remember that in the ancient world, having sores on your body was an immediate, symbol and sign of you being excommunicated from the community.

00:11:43:03 – 00:12:25:48
Michael Gewecke
It was a cultural reality that that these diseases, these sores, which, by the way, to the crown of your head, everyone sees your face, everyone sees your hands. The idea that this is now an affliction which is not just seen in the loss of things out there, but it’s it’s physically and visibly displayed on Jobe himself. It it’s really, I think, so challenging to us to grapple with the reality that that Jobe, the book is not trying to sugarcoat the fact that this is costing Jobe everything.

00:12:25:58 – 00:12:55:42
Michael Gewecke
It it it’s reaching all the way down. But to his life itself and this image, Clint Jobe took a posture with which to scrape himself and sat among the ashes. Notice what’s not here. Not. We don’t have what we had in the first dialog where he cuts his hair, where he he grieves, where he he cries out, it now in a almost, the shortest way of describing it possible.

00:12:55:42 – 00:13:25:53
Michael Gewecke
It jobe just sort of descends into the reality of the suffering and brokenness. I think it’s that quiet ness of Jobe here at this moment. The lack of outward ness, with his actions that simply the skin itself displaying the reality of his situation. This is disturbing, I think, at, at a soul level, because empathetically and and through our human compassion, this is unconscionable.

00:13:25:53 – 00:13:38:36
Michael Gewecke
It’s un defendable. It this is, I think, where we’re beginning to see it ramp up and really that whole connection with God. Where are you in this? That question becomes, I think, heavier as this goes.

00:13:38:49 – 00:14:02:08
Clint Loveall
It’s interesting how abbreviated this telling is compared to the first one in which we saw four messengers, one after the other after the other after the other. Here there’s only one thing that happens, and we cover it in a couple of sentences loathsome sores. Now, the text doesn’t use a word like leprosy, and I don’t mean to imply that it it is trying to infer leprosy.

00:14:02:13 – 00:14:36:27
Clint Loveall
But skin diseases were often thought of as divine punishments. And so there is a stigma in this. But fascinatingly, it is only one movement in the story. Because when you’re at the end of your rope, when you are where Jobe is, it only takes one more thing. It doesn’t take four servants lining up with bad news. All that is left for Jobe is to have this physical pain which now reflects his spiritual.

00:14:36:27 – 00:15:12:14
Clint Loveall
His internal emotional pain. And it leaves him grieving, mourning the ashes are a sign of grief. And so he is alone in that scraping himself is suffering essentially all that can be suffered to the extent now that even his wife, his partner, obviously doing her own grieving. But she even says, do you still push on with your integrity, curse God and die?

00:15:12:14 – 00:15:35:27
Clint Loveall
And these are very tough words to interpret. What does this mean? It perhaps she means that if you curse God, God will take your life. And you can be set free from this suffering. Perhaps she means. Why would you why would you hold to the idea? I think we have to be careful what we make of job’s wife.

00:15:35:27 – 00:16:08:46
Clint Loveall
She’s often treated in the story as an extension of what Satan is doing. In other words, she’s. She’s often treated as job’s enemy. It’s not clear. I think. At least it’s not entirely obvious that that’s the intention here. She represents in some way a reasonable reaction to job’s situation. She is the voice of the world speaking to job.

00:16:08:51 – 00:16:31:12
Clint Loveall
Why do you still defend God? Why do you still hold to your faith, curse God and die, be done with this. And then job, of course responds, you speak foolishly. Should we receive the good from the hand of God and not receive the bad? And in all this job did not sin with his lips. So, this does a couple of things.

00:16:31:12 – 00:17:02:52
Clint Loveall
It moves the story. It presents Joe with a, second temptation, not only the temptation of the pain that he’s in, but the temptation to heed the advice, the bad advice, in this case of his wife. And he refuses to do, one thing quick, Michael. There are folks who believe that if job existed as a story before the book, that this may have been where the insertion happens.

00:17:02:52 – 00:17:34:55
Clint Loveall
In other words, that that the three friends come in. So if job was originally a very short kind of fable, it is possible that we go right from here to the ending where Joel was commanded and and gets, rewarded essentially. Now, again, we don’t know that, but that is a theory. And that’s very interesting. The idea that Jobe having passed the tests, we move on to the conclusion that’s not ultimately how we receive the book.

00:17:34:55 – 00:17:39:27
Clint Loveall
But there is a theory that that might have been how it originally existed.

00:17:39:32 – 00:17:51:09
Michael Gewecke
So you alluded to this, that history, quite frankly, has been pretty hard on his wife. Even John Calvin himself, wrote pretty strong words about.

00:17:51:12 – 00:17:53:58
Clint Loveall
Satan’s helper in something along those.

00:17:53:58 – 00:18:27:40
Michael Gewecke
Lines. Yeah. And I think I can see how maybe someone gets there, but I, I do think that that may be more of a theological reading of the text than it may be a narrative reading, because I want to submit this to you, that that question is really a poignant and important framing question for this book. Right? It is realistically, will you husband curse God and die?

00:18:27:45 – 00:18:52:54
Michael Gewecke
Will you finally succumb to the pass that will end the suffering that you’re in? And actually, you could and in fact, there are traditions of, you know, the suffering that she had, and there’s extra texts that give her words that are not in our book of Joe, you know, all this historical, critical stuff. But I think Clint Jobe does curse the day of his birth.

00:18:52:58 – 00:19:23:15
Michael Gewecke
He longs for the the day when he, is no longer suffering. He gives significant words in which he’s pushing back against the pain that he’s in. But this phrase has a way of, as a reader, holding our attention. And I think the wife in many ways speaks for all of those who will read this book and say, at what point will you finally give in?

00:19:23:20 – 00:19:53:43
Michael Gewecke
At what point will you let go of your integrity, and at what point will you then curse God and be done with it? And as this book continues, Jobe is going to time and time and time again be put in position to make different choices than what he makes, he’s going to be given the opportunity to to take that out and we, the reader, are going to wonder, are you going to do it now?

00:19:53:45 – 00:20:21:55
Michael Gewecke
Are you going to encounter an argument that will push you over the edge? You will the suffering finally push you over and the question at play is, is it his integrity to remain faithful to God? Or is his wife suggesting that there’s actually a way in which he might be more honest if he simply admitted the truth of what’s wrong and curse God and then could be done with it?

00:20:21:55 – 00:20:41:22
Michael Gewecke
Say, you know, God obviously can’t be trusted in this curse and be done with it all. And maybe that would be a form of him having it. I think that this there’s more to this than what meets the eye. She’s not just the villain character in this story, I don’t think, though I think she just she has been read that way.

00:20:41:27 – 00:20:53:19
Michael Gewecke
I think if we can see in her and hear in her that this is a frame that’s going to hang over this text and it’s going to make us, the reader, wonder, Joe, what are you going to do? Where’s the end point for you?

00:20:53:24 – 00:21:23:03
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I maybe there’s a sense in which, as the Satan challenges God, job’s wife presents a challenge to his faith. That could be in there. Possibly. I think we have to be careful not to get distracted by those things. There’s a, Christian comedian that points out when Satan took everything that mattered from job and made his life better, he left his wife.

00:21:23:07 – 00:21:46:24
Clint Loveall
But I, I don’t know if that’s a fair. I don’t know if that’s a fair observation. You know, similar things happen in stories, like David and Bathsheba, where Bathsheba has often, though the text doesn’t say it, been cast as the instigator. And we just. Yeah, you have to be careful with that because ultimately we don’t know if that’s what the story is trying to tell us.

00:21:46:24 – 00:22:19:01
Clint Loveall
And since we don’t know, we should be cautious in assuming that we might know. This story is really about job and the challenges that job faces and job’s struggle to find, faithfulness and to endure suffering in the face of that, that challenge and I just we’re not going to hear from Satan again in this is the last we’ve heard the last from Satan that we will in this book.

00:22:19:06 – 00:22:32:17
Clint Loveall
We’ve also heard in this one instance everything that job’s wife has to say. And the story moves on. And I think we have to be careful lingering where the story doesn’t linger.

00:22:32:22 – 00:22:49:34
Michael Gewecke
That’s a wise word. We are glad to have you with us here today. As Joe story continues to become even more difficult and dense, we’ll continue on with this study. If you’re joining us live, I will be off tomorrow. Back on Wednesday, hope that until then you are blessed. Subscribe. So you don’t miss studies like this as they come out.

00:22:49:36 – 00:22:51:21
Michael Gewecke
We look forward to seeing you real soon.