Job 1:21 – “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”

Not everyone thinks this famous confession, uttered by Job after all his sons and daughters had perished, is good theology.

Ben Witherington, whose daughter tragically died in 2012, wrote this:-

‘According to Job 1, it was not God but the Devil who took away Job’s children, health, and wealth. God allowed it to happen, but when Job said these words, as the rest of the story shows, he was not yet enlightened about the true nature of the source of his calamity and God’s actual will for his life. God’s will for him was for good and not for harm.’

This reflects Ben’s Arminianism, but does it accurately reflect what the book of Job is actually saying?

Andrew Wilson responds with three observations:

1. It is not necessary to polarise the question in an ‘either/or’ way: either God did it, or Satan did it.  Wilson explains:

‘in several places in Scripture, we have the same event ascribed to both Yahweh and the devil, without any apparent inconsistency. The census that David took is said to be incited by Yahweh (2 Sam 24:1) and also by Satan (1 Chr 21:1). Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus because of both Satan and God, at different levels (Luke 22:3; Acts 4:24-28). Paul was afflicted by a messenger of Satan, but this mysterious entity was given him to stop him from being conceited, which sounds like the sort of thing God would do (2 Cor 12:7-9). The biblical writers, it seems, see the sovereignty of God in such a way that makes his intentions, and the intentions of even the most evil of his creatures, compatible (Isaiah 10:5-19 is a particularly clear passage on this idea). So the fact that something is the action of Satan, or Judas or the wicked kings of Assyria or Babylon, doesn’t mean it can’t also be the action of God.’

2. It is by no means clear, as Witherington urges, that Job later changed his mind on this point.  There is no indication that Job’s repentance (Job 42:1-6) has anything to do with his utterances in chapter 1.  Indeed, the Lord says (Job 42:7-8) that Job has spoken ‘rightly’, unlike his friends.  If anything,

‘God’s lengthy response to Job indicates that the very natural phenomena which killed Job’s children, like lightning bolts and mighty winds, are themselves sovereignly directed by God (Job 38:24-25).’

3. Job 1:22 explicitly says that ‘in all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong’.  Contrary to what Witherington says, Job was neither ‘poorly informed’ or guilty of ‘bad theology’.

As Wilson notes, there is more to be said.  Although the same event can be traced back both to Satan and to God, they are unequal partners (God is sovereign; the Devil is not), and have vastly different purposes (Satan to deceive and to destroy, God to speak truth and act wisely).  Satan meant it for evil; God meant it for good.

Although suffering and death are part and parcel of our experience, as fallen creatures in this broken world, they are not God’s ultimate intention.  We dare not say that God has nothing to do with the calamities of life, or that he simply wrings his hands in helpless grief when he sees them happening to his loved ones.  No:

‘Comfort, in the long run, comes from knowing that God is in control, that he works all things for good, that nothing can separate us from his love, that for those who are in Christ, to die is gain, and that grief for those we have lost is a vital and very biblical reaction. So even when things happen which we find painful, which we don’t understand and which we know that God could have prevented, we can still, ultimately, affirm joyfully that God is sovereign, and that God is good, all the time.’

Andy Naselli paraphrases the teaching of the book on this point:-

• Meanwhile, unknown to Job, Satan joins the sons of God (apparently God’s angels) when they present themselves before God, and God initiates a discussion with Satan about Job (Job 1:6–8).Satan accuses Job of serving God merely because God has blessed Job, and God gives Satan permission to test Job but not touch him (Job 1:9–12).
• Again Satan joins God’s angels when they present themselves before God, and again God initiates a discussion with Satan about Job (2:1–3). Satan accuses Job of serving God merely because God blessed him with health, and God gives Satan permission to touch Job but not murder him (Job 2:4–6).
• God allows Satan to afflict Job, but he does not merely allow it. The epilogue describes Job’s Satan-inflicted calamities as “all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). This is consistent with the prologue where God twice initiates discussions with Satan about Job (Job 1:8; 2:3). The end of God’s statement in Job 2:3 implies that God himself is the ultimate cause of the calamity since he, not Satan, is the one who destroys Job: “you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.”

[This is an expanded version of a post first published on 5th January, 2016]