JOB - THE MAN
The prologue to the book of Job (1:1-5) lets us know a lot about him.
--- Job was wealthy. He was the richest person in the entire area.
--- Job lived in the land of Uz.
----Job had a large family; a wife, ten children (7 sons and 3 daughters).
----Job was the owner of 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 teams of oxen, and 500 female donkeys.
----Job employed many servants.
--- Job was described as “blameless” and “upright,” always careful to avoid doing evil (1:1).
--- Job's sons would take turns holding feasts in their home. They invited their three sisters to eat and drink with them.
--- After the siblings' feasts were over, Job's regular custom was to have them purified. He would sacrifice a burnt offering for each one in case they had sinned.
One day, Satan appears before God in heaven. God boasts to Satan about Job’s goodness, but Satan argues that Job is only good because God has blessed him abundantly. Satan challenges God that, if given permission to punish the man, Job will turn and curse God. God allows Satan to torment Job to test this bold claim, but he forbids Satan to take Job’s life in the process.
In the course of one day, Job receives four messages, each bearing separate news that his livestock, servants, and ten children have all died due to invaders or natural catastrophes. Job tears his clothes and shaves his head in mourning, but he still blesses God in his prayers.
Satan appears in heaven again, and God grants him another chance to test Job. This time, Job is afflicted with horrible skin sores. His wife encourages Job to curse God and die, but Job does not curse God. He maintains his integrity.
Three of Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, come to visit him. They sit with Job in silence for seven days to show respect to his mourning. On the seventh day, Job speaks, beginning a conversation in which all three friends share their thoughts on Job’s afflictions in long, poetic statements. Job responds to each of the remarks, growing so irritated that he calls his friends “worthless physicians” who “whitewash with lies” (13:4).
Job curses the day he was born, comparing life and death to light and darkness. He wishes that his birth had been shrouded in darkness and longs to have never been born, feeling that light, or life, only intensifies his misery.
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