The Two-Hundred-Forty-Fifth (Job)

Last week we mentioned Job in reference to Satan’s accusations to YHWH regarding why Job was upright.  The account of Job is one of the standard teachings in Christianity, and it is absolutely something every Christian should learn and know.  However, it can be quite confusing as to the meaning behind it all and reconciling the events with the rest of scripture in terms of putting together a complete picture of YHWH’s nature and His relationship with mankind.

For the longest time, I just could not wrap my head around the events of Job, both those that occurred in the heavenly realm and those that occurred between Job and YHWH directly.  I couldn’t make it make sense as to why YHWH would allow Satan to torment a man considered upright and blameless according to YHWH Himself (Job 1:1).  According to scripture, it was even almost as if YHWH encouraged Satan to test Job (Job 1:8).  

Before we get too far into it though, we should acknowledge that there are some Christians out there that consider the whole account of Job a parable, simply a lesson for followers of YHWH to learn, rather than it being a recorded history of a man that actually lived.  There are no time markers in the entire book to reference the events to any other historical events, and there are even some people groups mentioned that are not recorded elsewhere in scripture.  There are a couple reasons why I reject that conclusion.  

First, Job, the man, is referenced in another prominent book of scripture written by one of the greatest prophets that ever lived.  Ezekiel was the main prophet to prophesy to Israel regarding their condemnation and impending judgment of the first destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.  Much of the same imagery and messaging is repeated in John’s book of Revelation, and Yeshua used the same title that Ezekiel was called, more often than not, when referring to Himself during His ministry, a good portion of which was a condemnation of the remnant of Israel, the majority of which were of the tribe of Judah.  This makes you wonder about what Yeshua’s and John’s prophecies were really about, doesn’t it?

YHWH, when speaking to Ezekiel, references Job during a portion of His prophecies against Israel (Ezekiel 14:14-23).  Not only that, He included Job with a couple other individuals that we absolutely know existed.  He counted them with Noah and Daniel when listing righteous people and giving context to the extent of the judgment to come.  In contrast to the account of Lot and the judgment imposed on Sodom and Gomorrah, the righteousness of Noah, Daniel, and Job would have been insufficient to save their families from the judgment to come on the land of Israel.

Could YHWH have included Job simply because he was the subject of a well-known parable?  That could be the case, but why pick a fictional character to include with non-fictional individuals?  If Job was not a real person, why wouldn’t YHWH just have included someone like Abraham, a well-known and righteous person, instead, and have a list full of real people?  

The other reason I reject the premise that Job was just a parable with fictional characters is because there are references to some of the people groups included in the book of Job elsewhere in scripture.  We see Sabeans (Job 1:15), who are descendants of Sheba (Genesis 10:7).  We see Temanites (Job 2:11), from which one of the kings of Edom came (Genesis 36:34).  And we see quite possibly the most prominent Gentile people group of the Old Testament, the Chaldeans (Job 1:17), who ultimately became the Babylonians that conquered and exiled the Israelites (Ezekiel 11:24).

Isn’t it interesting how YHWH drops little hints about things all over the place?  If I may digress for a moment, I believe it’s more than likely that He included Job in His prophecy to Ezekiel, rather than some other prominent righteous figure, because the Chaldeans, or Babylonians, were the ones that executed His judgment on Israel just like the Chaldeans were involved in taking Job’s possessions (Job 1:17).  We don’t have time to get into it right now, but I’ve been finding a lot of little hints given by Yeshua in which He connected some verses of scripture in His teachings that aren’t entirely obvious.  For example, Job includes a reference to new wine in wineskins (Job 32:19, Matthew 9:17, Mark 2:22, Luke 5:37) as well as a reference to eagles being present where there are dead (Job 39:27-30, Matthew 24:28, Luke 17:37).

Getting back to the topic at hand, I’m sure you can see why I can’t accept the account of Job as being purely a parable for instruction, but there’s another teaching out there these days that’s even more heinous, in my opinion.  I originally thought this belief to be limited to a small group of Christians that focused on preterist eschatology, but I recently saw an advertisement on Facebook for a book that supposedly “unlocks the secrets” of scripture, and this belief was the main selling point, if you could call it that, for this particular advertisement for that book.  The belief is that anywhere you see the word “Satan,” it’s not a reference to a particular individual but a reference to the general idea of stumbling blocks we encounter in our lives.

I mention this here because Satan is a very prominent figure in the account of Job, and it’s hard for me to understand how someone can come to that belief, even if the only book in scripture that you had access to is the book of Job.  I mean, that would make essentially all of the first two chapters absolutely ridiculous (Job 1-2).  So, YHWH was talking to a stumbling block?  Why go through all the trouble to create this detailed scene of YHWH’s messengers coming before YHWH and Satan joining them?  Why create some meaningless conversation between Satan and YHWH, if he is just a representation of general hardship that man encounters in life?  Going to the rest of scripture, why portray Satan as an individual with a will and the capacity to influence specific events over the course of the history of mankind that show a measured plan to destroy YHWH’s creation and become like Him?  

One of Derek Prince’s points during his ministry was that some theologians attempt to allegorize a majority of scripture, and if you do that you end up making the whole of scripture meaningless because the whole of scripture could be made to mean anything.  It’s amazing to me he could see that in Christianity about three decades ago during his ministry, but even more amazing that today the allegorizing of scripture seems to have become inordinately worse and more pervasive.  I’d be interested to hear Mr. Prince’s reaction to the allegorizing of Satan himself!  However, this is just another lesson for us to remember that we must test all spirits (1 John 4:1), and in my opinion, one of the top tests we should give is whether or not the belief or teaching seeks to obscure the individual of Satan and his plan.  

Moving on, one of the interesting aspects of the account of Job is that it gives us a glimpse into the state of the heavenly realm at the time of Job in comparison to other parts of scripture.  While there is no dating in the account, as previously mentioned, we can see that during this time Satan was not only able to access the heaven in which YHWH mainly resides, he was, by some measure, authorized to be there (Job 1:6).  We also see that already at this point Satan was distinguished in some way from the other messengers of YHWH (Job 1:6).  It states that he also came with the sons of YHWH, indicating that he was not counted with them, and elsewhere it states that he also presented himself before YHWH (Job 2:1).  

We know through other scripture that Satan originally had a very prominent place amongst the messengers of YHWH, even being one of the top messengers (Isaiah 14:12-14, Ezekiel 28:12-15), however at this point he had lost his association with those messengers altogether.  We also know that at some point he fell from heaven (Luke 10:18), and after this fall, based on how all the scriptures fit together, he was, or will be, cast to the earth (Revelation 12:7-9, Ezekiel 28:17) (More on this in a minute).  The book of Job helps us clarify the progression of Satan’s downfall, which enables us to better understand where we are in YHWH’s cosmological design.

Another key aspect of this account is that Satan had already become the accuser.  Not only had his name literally become “The Accuser” (the meaning of the Hebrew Ha-Satan), his actions were that he accused Job of following YHWH based on the goodness YHWH gave him and accused YHWH of misrepresenting the righteousness of Job, stating that the only reason was because YHWH took care of him (Job 1:9-11, Job 2:4).  All throughout scripture we see Satan fulfilling this role in an attempt to discredit and destroy YHWH’s creation and make himself equal with YHWH.

By putting all these facts together, including a statement of Paul that helps us understand how the heavens are laid out (2 Corinthians 12:2) and lining up major historical events, we can start to see what happened to Satan as a result of his rebellion.  He started as one of the top messengers, likely with at least a portion of his role being a praise leader for YHWH based on his original name in Hebrew being a derivative of the Hebrew word for praise.  During this time, his normal dwelling was in the third heaven, the place where YHWH and His throne are.  At some point, his rebellion led to him falling from this third heaven to a lower heaven, which is what Yeshua testified of seeing, but he was still allowed access to the third heaven, where he did his accusing before YHWH.  In my belief, his legal right to access the presence of YHWH for the purpose of accusation was based on there not yet being an all-atoning sacrifice by which Satan lost that legal right.  Obviously, that sacrifice was the crucifixion of Yeshua, which leads me to believe that it was at that event that Satan was finally cast to earth, never to access the heavens again.  This follows with the account of that casting out, recorded in Revelation, the context of which just prior we see the resurrection of the man-child that was prophesied to rule all nations with an iron scepter (Revelation 12:5, Psalm 2:9).

A better understanding of these events is great, and gives us the ability to put more of the pieces of scripture together into a cohesive picture, but there’s still that enigma hanging out there about the whole reason Job was attacked in the first place.  The rest of the book is Job’s friends accusing him of being wicked and causing judgment on himself, with only one friend speaking words of wisdom about the situation and rebuking the others, and then a conversation between Job and YHWH which leads to Job’s repentance and finally a blessing from YHWH of being given double of everything he had previously.  It’s also interesting that YHWH made Job’s friends sacrifice before him and Job be the intermediary to gain YHWH’s forgiveness (Job 42:7-9).

So, why all the terrible things in the first place?  Job was righteous and blameless by YHWH’s own admission, and there had to be a reason, otherwise YHWH would be an unjust God, and we know that is not true.  There’s not much for us to go on in the account itself, so we have to look across the whole of scripture to see YHWH’s character.  We know that while YHWH does not tempt someone to sin, He does test them (James 1:13).  We also know that He refines His people with trials and tribulations (Psalm 66:10, Zechariah 13:9, 1 Peter 1:6-7).  Finally, we know that sin causes judgment, which can take different forms in a man’s life such as plagues and destruction or loss of property.  That’s what Job’s less wise friends had attributed Job’s affliction to.

Using all these truths, there are a few possibilities as to why Job suffered these events and why Satan was allowed to commit them.  First, I believe it was an opportunity for Satan to repent.  YHWH knew Satan’s desire to discredit man, the pride and joy of YHWH’s creation, and was giving him an opportunity to turn away from this desire and become a righteous and obedient messenger once again.  I also believe that despite Job’s righteousness and blamelessness, there was something in his life legally allowing Satan to impose these horrible events on Job.    

What could possibly be the impetus of that legal right?  As we saw, YHWH said he was righteous and blameless.  To me, there are two possibilities.  First, Job was sacrificing for his children in the possibility that they had sinned.  I think it’s entirely possible that the legal right came from Job performing sacrifices instead of holding his children accountable and teaching them to walk upright and blameless like him.  This view would also be supported by the fact that Satan was allowed to kill his children, and as we know, death is a result of sin.  The other possibility is that his children were in fact blameless and hadn’t sinned.  Job’s sacrifices would then have been meaningless, and perhaps a stench in YHWH’s nose as we see described in other places in scripture where sacrifices were given without any associated repentance.  Pointless sacrifices are an abomination to YHWH, since they show no true understanding of what His will is and being obedient to it.

Whatever the legal right, we know by this account that Job definitely had at least one lesson to learn.  During his inquiries of YHWH, it was as if Job was calling YHWH out for doing something to him unjustly (Job 31).  They were almost sarcastic statements, hinting that Job knew he had done none of the things he was saying, but then telling YHWH to give him the punishment if he had.  I’m sure you’ve experienced this in your life, where you confront someone about something and they list off a bunch of things that they clearly hadn’t done but tell you to prove they had and chastise them for it (all the while avoiding the fact that they had actually done the thing you were confronting them about).  

In Job’s case, I think he had to learn a lesson in humility, and we can see this fact in YHWH’s response.  Job had become prideful of his status, not only of his wealth, but also of his righteousness.  He went so far as to make sacrifices for his children “just in case” they had sinned, not wanting anything to potentially call into question his righteousness.  YHWH put him in his place however, reestablishing His position among creation in Job’s mind by pointing out all the things He was responsible for.  The interesting part?  How short Job’s response is.  He spent chapters and chapters calling out YHWH, but only a few lines for him to say he was wrong and repent.  And that was perfectly acceptable to YHWH!  He didn’t require groveling or a long, drawn out dissertation on why Job knew he was wrong.  

As you can see, there are a lot of lessons we can learn from the account of Job, not the least of which is the typical recognizing of YHWH’s place and ways being so far above ours we couldn’t hope to understand them and knowing He has reasons for things that happen to us.  We need to take these lessons and apply them to our lives, our walk with Yeshua, and our obedience to YHWH.  I hope this study has been a blessing to you, and that you have a great week!

Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!

-Rob and Sara Gene