So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
Parallel Translations
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So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
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So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.
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So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word unto him; for they saw that his grief was very great.
Cross-references (10)
Passages linked to Job 2:13 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Genesis 50:10 They came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and there they lamented with a very great and severe lamentation. He mourned for his father seven days.
- Nehemiah 1:4 When I heard these words, I sat down and wept, and mourned several days; and I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven,
- Ezekiel 3:15 Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel Aviv, that lived by the river Chebar, and to where they lived; and I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days.
- Isaiah 3:26 Her gates shall lament and mourn. She shall be desolate and sit on the ground.
- Genesis 1:5 God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day.
- Genesis 1:8 God called the expanse “sky”. There was evening and there was morning, a second day.
- Ezra 9:3 When I heard this thing, I tore my garment and my robe, and pulled the hair out of my head and of my beard, and sat down confounded.
- Job 4:2 “If someone ventures to talk with you, will you be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking?
- Psalms 77:4 You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I can’t speak.
- Isaiah 47:1 “Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain And therefore thought that he would not have hearkened…
And therefore thought that he would not have hearkened unto their counsel.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Job 2:13 So they sat down with him upon…
Job 2:13 So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that [his] grief was very great.
Ver. 13. So they sat down with him on the ground] Though his scent and loathsomeness were intolerable, yet they bare him company; this was love and sympathy, thus to sit by him on the ground, then, when every one loathed him, and would not lend him a hand to help to scrape him.
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Seven days and seven nights] Not all this time, but the most part of it, without giving almost any regard to their ordinary rest and necessary sustenance. Origen saith, they were sustained and preserved all that while without sleep and meat, by a miracle; others, holding it a thing impossible, have, therefore, judged this whole book to be a parable only.
And none spake a word unto him] So great was their grief, Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent. They speak of light care, they are astounded not natural. Calvin thinks they were to blame to be so long silent. Belike they were loth to be troublesome, and waited a fit opportunity; looking that he should speak first, and harbouring hard conceits of him.
For they saw that his grief was very great] His pain was extreme, and, therefore, no time to talk with him. Besides, though they came prepared, yet, altering their opinions of him, they doubted how and what to speak, till at length they became Satan’s advocates.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Sat down with him upon the ground, in the…
Sat down with him upon the ground, in the posture of mourners condoling with him.
Seven days and seven nights was the usual time of mourning for the dead, Gen 1:10; 1Sa 31:13, and therefore proper both for Job’s children, who were dead, and for Job himself, who was in a manner dead whilst he lived. But we must not fancy that they continued in this place and posture so long together, which no laws of religion or civility required of them, and the necessities of nature could not bear; but only that they spent a great or the greatest part of that time in sitting with him, and silent mourning over him. And so such general expressions are frequently understood, as Luk 2:37; 24:53; Act 20:31.
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None spake a word to him; either,
1. About any thing. Or rather,
2. About his afflictions, and the causes of them. The reason of this silence was, partly the greatness of their grief for him, and their surprise and astonishment at his condition; partly, because they thought it convenient to give him some further time to vent his own sorrows; and partly, because as yet they knew not what to say to him: for though they had ever esteemed him to be a truly wise and godly man, and came with full purpose to comfort him; yet the prodigious greatness of his miseries, and that hand and displeasure of God which they manifestly perceived in them, made them at a stand, and to question Job’s sincerity; so that they could not comfort him as they had intended, and yet were loth to grieve him with those convictions and reproofs which they thought he greatly needed. And here they stuck till Job gave them occasion to speak their minds.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Upon the ground - In the posture of mourners…
Upon the ground - In the posture of mourners condoling with him. Seven days - Which was the usual time of mourning for the dead, and therefore proper both for Job's children, and for Job himself, who was in a manner dead, while he lived: not that they continued in this posture so long together, which the necessities of nature could not bear; but they spent the greatest part of that time in sitting with him, and silent mourning over him. None spake - About his afflictions and the causes of them. The reason of this silence was the greatness of their grief for him, and their surprize and astonishment at his condition; because they thought it convenient to give him time to vent his own sorrows, and because as yet they knew not what to say to him: for though they had ever esteemed him to be a truly good man, and came with full purpose to comfort him, yet the prodigious greatness of his miseries, and that hand of God which they perceived in them, made them now question his sincerity, so that they could not comfort him as they had intended, and yet were loth to grieve him with reproofs.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 13. They sat down with him upon the…
Verse 13. They sat down with him upon the ground seven days] They were astonished at the unprecedented change which had taken place in the circumstances of this most eminent man; they could not reconcile his present situation with any thing they had met with in the history of Divine providence. The seven days mentioned here were the period appointed for mourning. The Israelites mourned for Jacob seven days, Ge 50:10. And the men of Jabesh mourned so long for the death of Saul, 1Sa 31:13; 1Ch 10:12. And Ezekiel sat on the ground with the captives at Chebar, and mourned with and for them seven days. Eze 3:15. The wise son of Sirach says, "Seven days do men mourn for him that is dead;" Ecclus. 22:12. So calamitous was the state of Job, that they considered him as a dead man: and went through the prescribed period of mourning for him.
They saw that his grief was very great.] This is the reason why they did not speak to him: they believed him to be suffering for heavy crimes, and, seeing him suffer so much, they were not willing to add to his distresses by invectives or reproach. Job himself first broke silence.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Job 2:13. So they sat down with him upon…
Job 2:13. So they sat down with him upon the ground — In the same mournful posture wherein they found him, which indeed was the usual posture of mourners, condoling with him. Sitting on the ground, in the language of the eastern people, signifies their passing the time in the deepest mourning. Seven days and seven nights — Which was the usual time of mourning for the dead, Gen 50:10; 1Sa 31:13, and therefore proper, both for Job’s children, who were dead, and for Job himself, who was in a manner, dead while he lived: not that they continued in this posture so long together, which the necessities of nature could not bear: but they spent a great, or the greatest, part of that time in sitting with him, and silent mourning over him. And none spake a word to him —
About his afflictions or the cause of them, or, perhaps, about any thing. “A long silence,” says Dr. Dodd, “is a very natural effect of an extraordinary grief, which overwhelms the mind, and creates a sort of stupor and astonishment. Thus we find the Prophet Eze 3:15, sitting with his brethren of the captivity by the river Chebar, for seven days, astonished, silent among them, as the Chaldee renders it; struck dumb, as it were, at the apprehension of their present miseries, and the still greater calamities coming on his country.” And thus were Job’s friends affected on this occasion; their long silence arising from the greatness of their grief for him, and their surprise and astonishment at the condition in which they found him. They probably, also, thought it proper to give him some further time to vent his own sorrows; and might, as yet, not know what to say to him: for though they had ever esteemed him to be a truly good man, and came with a full purpose to comfort him; yet the prodigious greatness of his miseries, and that hand and apparent displeasure of God which they perceived in them, made them now question his sincerity, so that they could not comfort him as they had intended, and yet were loath to grieve him with reproofs.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain So they sat down with him upon the ground;…
So they sat down with him upon the ground; - see Job 1:20, note; Job 2:8, note; compare Ezr 9:3, “I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head, and my beard, and sat down astonished.”
Seven days and seven nights - Seven days was the usual time of mourning among the Orientals. Thus, they made public lamentation for Jacob seven days, Gen 50:10. Thus, on the death of Saul, they fasted seven days, 1Sa 31:13. So the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus says,” Seven days do men mourn for him that is dead;” Eccles. 22:12. It cannot be supposed that they remained in the same place and posture for seven days and nights, but that they mourned with him during that time in the usual way. An instance of grief remarkably similar to this, continuing through a period of six days, is ascribed by Euripides to Orestes:
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Ἐντεῦθεν ἀγρίᾳ ξυντακεὶς νόσῳ νοσεῖ
Τλήμων Ὀρέστης; ο δὲ πεσὼν ἐν δεμνίοις
Κεῖται.
Ἓκτου δὲ δὴ τόδ ἦμαρ, κ. τ. λ.
Enteuthen agriacuntakeis nosō nosei
Tlēmōn Orestēs; ho de pesōn en demniois
Keitai.
Hekton de dē tod́ ēmar, etc.
“‘Tis hence Orestes, agonized with griefs
And sore disease, lies on his restless bed
Delirious.
Now six morns have winged their flight,
Since by his hands his parent massacred
Burnt on the pile in expiatory flames.
Stubborn the while he keeps a rigid fast,
Nor bathes, nor dresses; but beneath his robes
He skulks, and if he steals a pause from rage,
‘Tis but to feel his weight of wo and weep.”
And none spake a word to him - - That is, on the subject of his grief. They came to condole with him, but they had now nothing to say. They saw that his affliction was much greater than they had anticipated.
For they saw that his grief was very great - This is given as a reason why they were silent. But “how” this produced silence, or why his great grief was a cause of their silence, is not intimated. Perhaps one or all of the following considerations may have led to it.
(1) They were amazed at the extent of his sufferings. Amazement is often expressed by silence. We look upon that which is out of the usual course of events without being able to express anything. We are “struck dumb” with wonder.
(2) The effect of great calamity is often to prevent utterance. Nothing is more natural or common than profound silence when we go to the house of mourning. “It is the lesser cares only that speak; the greater ones find not language.” Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.
(3) They might not have known what to say. They had come to sympathize with him, and to offer consolation. But their anticipated topics of consolation may have been seen to be inappropriate. The calamity was greater than they had before witnessed. The loss of property and children; the deep humiliation of a man who had been one of the most distinguished of the land; the severity of his bodily sufferings, and his changed and haggard appearance, constituted so great a calamity, that the usual topics of conversation did not meet the case. What “they” had to say, was the result of careful observation on the usual course or events, and it is by no means improbable that they had never before witnessed sorrows so keen, and that they now saw that their maxims would by no means furnish consolation for “such” a case.
(4) They seem to have been very early thrown into doubt in regard to the real character of Job. They had regarded him as a pious man, and had come to him under that impression. But his great afflictions seem soon to have shaken their confidence in his piety, and to have led them to ask themselves whether so great a sufferer “could” be the friend of God. Their subsequent reasonings show that it was with them a settled opinion that the righteous would be prospered, and that very great calamities were proof of great criminality in the sight of God. It was not inconsistent with this belief to suppose that the righteous might be slightly afflicted, but when they saw “such” sorrows, they supposed they were altogether beyond what God could send upon his friends; and with this doubt on their minds, and this change in their views, they knew not what to say. How “could” they console him when it was their settled belief that great sufferings were proof of great guilt? They could say nothing which would not seem to be a departure from this, unless they assumed that he had been a hypocrite, and should administer reproof and rebuke for his sins.
(5) In this state of things, to administer “rebuke” would seem to be cruel. It would aggravate the sorrows which already were more than he could bear. They did, therefore, what the friends of the afflicted are often compelled to do in regard to specific sufferings; they kept silence. As they could not comfort him, they would not aggravate his grief. All they could have said would probably have been unmeaning generalities which would not meet his case, or would have been sententious maxims which would imply that he was a sinner and a hypocrite; and they were therefore dumb, until the bitter complaint of Job himself Job 3 gave them an opportunity to state the train of thought which had passed through their minds during this protracted silence. How often do similar cases occur now - cases where consolation seems almost impossible, and where any truths which might be urged, except the most abstract and unmeaning generalities, would tend only to aggravate the sorrows of the afflicted! When calamity comes upon a person as the result of his sins; when property is taken away which has been gained in an unlawful manner; when a friend dies, leaving no evidence that he was prepared; when it is impossible to speak of that friend without recalling the memory of his irreligious, prayerless, or dissolute life, how difficult is it to administer consolation! How often is the Christian friend constrained to close his lips in silence, or utter only “torturing” general truths that can give no consolation, or refer to facts which will tend only to open the wound in the heart deeper! To be silent at such times is all that can be done; or to commend the sufferer in humble prayer to God, an expedient which seems not to have been resorted to either by Job or his friends, It is remarkable that Job is not represented as calling upon God for support, and it is as remarkable that his friends during these seven days of silent grief did not commend the case of their much afflicted friend to the Father of mercies. Had “Job” prayed, he might have been kept from much of the improper feeling to which he gave vent in the following chapter; had “they” prayed, they might have obtained much more just views of the government of God than they had hitherto possessed.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Seven days, &c. They sat with him for a…
Seven days, &c. They sat with him for a good part of the day, and of the night, during seven days: and spoke nothing all that time that could give him any uneasiness. (Challoner) (Menochius) (Olympiad.) --- They mourned for him as if he had been dead. Their mutual grief was too great for utterance. But the text seems to intimate that they remained with Job, all this time. (Scultet.) (Calmet) --- Their design in coming was really to afford him consolation; but being under a mistake, respecting the conduct of Providence towards mankind, (Calmet) they erred involuntarily, (Tirinus) and by attempting to prove their assertions, as if none but criminals could be so grievously afflicted, they eventually insulted the holy man, Tobias ii. 15. --- They argued on the principle, "that under a just God no one is miserable, unless he have deserved it;" not reflecting that god sometimes puts his best servants to the trial, that their merit and glory may increase. Notwithstanding their piety and learning, they became therefore the devil’s most powerful agents unawares: (Calmet) and though they were not properly heretics, as they acquiesced when better informed, they were a figure of them, by drawing from many undeniable truths false inferences, and by a parade of learning, and of new things. (St. Gregory, Mor. iii. 24., and v. 18.) --- They also judged rashly of Job’s secret behaviour. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain seven days . . . nights--They did not remain…
seven days . . . nights--They did not remain in the same posture and without food, &c., all this time, but for most of this period daily and nightly. Sitting on the earth marked mourning (Lam 2:10). Seven days was the usual length of it (Gen 50:10; Sa1 31:13). This silence may have been due to a rising suspicion of evil in Job; but chiefly because it is only ordinary griefs that find vent in language; extraordinary griefs are too great for utterance.
Next: Job Chapter 3
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 13. Seven days and seven nights — The Orientals…
13. Seven days and seven nights — The Orientals not only bemoaned the event of death for a period of seven days, (Gen_50:10, Sir_22:12,) but other calamities — those of a national. (Eze_3:15,) and, as in this case, those of a more private, character. The “Bedawi Romance of Antar” thus describes the lamentation of the tribes of Abs and Adnam over their great discomfiture, and the many kings and chiefs that had been slain in battle: “They threw down their tents and pavilions, and thus they continued seven days and seven nights.” The obsequies of a Jewish king were celebrated with peculiar honours: “among others,” says Maimonides, “a company of students in the law were appointed to sit at his sepulchre, and to mourn seven days together.”
(Cited by LEWIS, Antiq., 3:88.) Dillmann, Hirtzel, and others, deny that custom prescribed a seven days’ silence. This they attribute to deep compassion and awe for Job’s sorrow. The counter view of Ewald and Rosenmuller, that such mourning was in conformity with the custom of the times, may be illustrated by a similar usage that to the present time prevails among the Hindus: “Those who go to sympathize with the afflicted are often silent for hour’s together. As there were seven clays for mourning in the Scriptures, so here, and the seventh is always the greatest, the chief mourner, during the whole of these days, will never speak, except when it is absolutely necessary. When a visitor comes in, he simply looks and bows down his head.” — ROBERTS, Orient. Illus. The Rabbins tell us that among the Jews the mourner always sat chief; and the comforters, who were the neighbours, were not to speak a word till he broke silence first. — LEWIS, Ibid.
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EXCURSUS No. I.
SATAN.
This word Satan — Septuagint, diabolos, “devil” — is a word purely Semitic, (Arabic, Shatanah,) signifying “adversary,” and is from the same form, שׂשׂן, Satan, “to attack,” “lie in wait,” “hate.” It is used in Job and in Zechariah with the article, “the Satan,” either for emphasis, “the adversary “pre-eminently, (for the word appears elsewhere a few times as a designation of human beings,) or, more properly, as a proper name of a being at that time well known.
He first appears in Scripture under the guise of the serpent, (a name he afterwards bears,) as the agent in encompassing man’s fall. On the reasonable supposition that Adam, in his subsequent reflections if not in the hour of his temptation, must have peered through this bestial disguise and apprehended the superbestial agency involved in the act of intelligent speech, we may presume that the being of this profoundly mysterious adversary must have as deeply impressed the descendants of Adam as any other of the antediluvian facts whose traditions still linger among men. The Arabs, for instance, still “call a serpent Satan, especially if he be conspicuous in the crest, the head, and repulsive looks.” — Schultens.
There are very few, if any, of the essential characteristics of the Satan of this book that are not to be found in the diabolic actor in the garden. So that the serious objection urged by some against the antiquity of the Book of Job because of its “full-fledged Satan,” as they are pleased to call this most malicious enemy of our race, really finds its refutation in the records of the Fall. And it may be as easy to account for the fact that during the many centuries included in the Book of Genesis no further mention is made of Satan, as for the silence respecting the actual instrument in beguiling Eve. A detailed comparison of the two Satans of Genesis and Job would show them to be not only one in being but in the amount of disclosure of character made, and that the supposed progress of doctrine in regard to Satan is without a valid basis.
A general knowledge of this evil spirit is implied in the Azazel of Leviticus, chapter xvi, translated scapegoat, who is represented as the antithesis to God, which necessitates a spiritual personality — “a personification of abstract impurity as opposed to the absolute purity of Jehovah.” — Roskoff. The very desert to which the goat “to Azazel” was to be sent, was in the popular belief the home of evil spirits. (Isa_13:21; Isa_34:14.) This view of Azazel as Satan is confirmed by the etymology of the word Azazel, the might or “power of God,” (Furst and Gesenius,) perhaps the name of the evil spirit before his fall, (compare Gabriel,) or “defiance to God,” another etymology suggested by Gesenius. (Thesaurus, 1012.) Origen declared Azazel to be the devil. (See Hengstenberg’s “Egypt and the Books of Moses,” 159-174.)
In 1Ch_21:1. Satan (without the article) “stands up against Israel,” and that he may involve a whole nation in the wrath of God, persuades its royal head into the pride and presumption of numbering the people. The Satan is here disclosed as operating within the domain of the mind, and moving mind directly by solicitations from within. This is the most important disclosure of the Old Testament with regard to Satanic agency.
The same idea of adversary appears in Zec_3:1, where Satan stands as accuser (Rev_12:10, κατηγωρ) at the right hand of the high priest — the proper place of an accuser — and antagonizes (literally, Satanizes) him in his official capacity of bearing the sins of the people before the Lord.
In these four chief places of the Old Testament where Satan is disclosed we have, therefore, a oneness and consistency of character answering to the generic meaning of the word Satan. The position of adversary to such a being as God, makes possible all that the Bible reveals of his nature. He stands at the head of fallen beings, who, in the New Testament, are called demons, δαιμονια — the one great, powerful, and infinitely malicious personality, who, for some reasons not fully revealed, seeks the injury and ruin of our race — an object of overwhelming terror unless restrained by the grace and power of God. In the New Testament he bears the names Satan, Beelzebub, Belial; and the titles “devil,” (διαβολος;) “slanderer,” (one who sets at variance;) the “wicked one;” “prince of this world;” the “destroyer;” “prince of the demons,” (των δαιμονιων, Mar_3:22;) “prince of the power of the air;” “lord of the dwelling;” “worthlessness,” or “wickedness;” and is the author of evil, Joh_8:44, the enemy of mankind, Mat_13:39, and the tempter of the faithful, 1Th_3:5. Satan is a created spirit, subordinate in every sphere to God, and destined to be subjugated by Christ, and has but little in common with the dualistic conception of an evil spirit coeternal and coequal with the good. The disclosures concerning our great foe are confined to the word of God. Traces, indeed, there are, in the most ancient mythologies, that plainly reach back to the garden of Eden, of a spirit pre-eminently evil, but they are so overgrown with puerile conceptions of suryas: devs, fervers, etc., that the scriptural idea of Satan is almost lost. The evil spirit most nearly resembling the Satan of the Old Testament is Set, or Typhon, of the Egyptian mythology. Under the ascription of an “adversary,” he is invoked on a papyrus as “the god who is in the void, the almighty destroyer and waster.” — DOLLINGER, Gentile and Jew, 1:453. The features of resemblance on the part of Set, or the Vritra of the Vedas, Tiamat of the Babylonians, Angra Mainyus (Ahriman) of the Avesta, or Loki of the Scandinavians, are too few to need notice. See pp. 277, 278.
EXCURSUS No. II.
SATAN AMONG THE SONS OF GOD.
The confessedly strange scene of Satan in the midst of “the sons of God” has called forth various theories: —
1. That it is to be regarded as a mere vision, after the manner of the vision of Micaiah. (1Ki_22:19.)
2. That the scene has not even the basis of a vision, but God employs the figure of an earthly court in accommodation to our ideas of things. According to Mercerus, while “engaged in their ministry the angels cease not to stand before the Lord. They are said, after a human way, to return to him when they praise him,” etc. Quaint Job Caryl, the most copious of the many writers on this book, takes this view: “This I say, God doth here after the manner of men; for, otherwise, we are not to conceive that God doth make certain days of session with his creatures, wherein he doth call the good and bad angels together about the affairs of the world. We must not have such gross conceits of God; for he needs receive no information from them, neither doth he give them or Satan any formal commission; neither is Satan admitted into the presence of God, to come so near God at any time; neither is God moved at all by the slanders of Satan, or by his accusations, to deliver up his children and servants into his hands for a moment; but only the Scripture speaks thus to teach us how God carries himself in the affairs of the world, even as if he sat upon his throne, and called every creature before him, and gave each directions what and when and where to work, how far and which way to move in every action.” Kitto (Daily Bib. Illust. in loc.) endorses this view.
3. That the Satan, here, is a good spirit, to whom has been assigned the work of trying and proving men. This was the opinion of Dathe, Eichhorn, Schultens, and Herder. The last mentioned regarded him as a kind of censor morum, or an attorney or solicitor general, (Staats-Anwalt Gottes.) This view, which savours more of trifling than of serious discourse, is destined to a like fate with that of Dathe, of which Gesenius says it is now universally exploded.
4. That his presence is tolerated as a culprit, or as a transgressor as yet unexposed except to God himself. Thus St. Augustine, (Serm. in loc.): “Satan was in the midst of the good angels, even as a criminal stands in the midst of bailiffs awaiting judgment.” Delitzsch suggests, “that Satan here appears among the good spirits, resembling Judas Iscariot among the disciples until his treachery was revealed.” This thought Birks (Difficulties of Belief, p. 99) expands: “If Judas remained long undetected among the twelve apostles, it is conceivable that the crime of the arch deceiver may have remained concealed for a time except from the eye of the Omniscient alone. We may conceive that the adversary was still permitted to appear among the sons of God, and to seek, in the courts of heaven itself, to veil his dark malice under the show of a zeal for the divine justice, and his fraudulent temptations under the specious show of genuine benevolence towards angels and men.” A plausible theory! but one requiring that the temptation of Job should have taken place prior to the fall of man; for at that time the character of Satan must have been fully revealed.
Another theory is that of Dachsel: “Satan appears among the children of God before the Lord, on the one part, because all his hostile doing stands under God’s holy will and his permission,… on the other part, because Satan and his angels have a right to accuse believers before the Lord as long as an unforgiven sin remains in the Church of God. Rev_12:10.” (See also Delitzsch, under Job_2:9, who maintains the same view.)
The gist of this whole difficulty lies in the problem of the place where the scene transpired. The intimation that Satan could have insinuated himself into the heaven of the sainted dead is a pure assumption, at once contrary to the entire analogy of the Scriptures and offensive to our thoughts. The subject has been embarrassed by the too limited view taken of the dominion of God. The innumerable company (μυριαδες) of angels, (Heb_12:22,) may be assigned to divers worlds, and subjected to different economies of the divine government. Under some one of these, the visible appearing of Satan may be no more abnormal than is his invisible presence in kindred assemblages in this world. Indeed, our present economy, no less than that which opened in Eden, discloses not only the juxta-residence of good and evil spirits, but their casual association. Analogy justifies us in accepting a similar economy for at least one other world, and this would meet the demands the scene before us makes upon our faith. The scene, however, which is remarkable for its downright naturalness, has been overlaid with “cabinets” and “councils” and the paraphernalia of Eastern courts, to the prejudice of sound criticism.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 13. none spake a word] Being overwhelmed by the…
13. none spake a word] Being overwhelmed by the affecting sight before them; as the Author adds: they saw that the grief, i. e. the pain or affliction, was very great. Comp. Eze_3:15. The length of time during which they sat in silence, seven days and seven nights (the time of mourning for the dead, Gen_50:10; 1Sa_31:13), shews the profound impression made upon them.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (13) So they sat down with him upon the…
(13) So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days.—Compare the conduct of David (2Sa_12:16), and see also Gen_1:10; 1Sa_31:13; Eze_3:15. There is a colossal grandeur about this description which is in keeping with the majesty and hoary antiquity of the poem.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain So they sat down with him upon the ground…
So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights. Professor Lee supposes that this is not to be taken literally. "It means" he says, "that they sat with him a considerable length of time before they opened the question discussed in this book, not that they sat precisely seven days and seven nights, and said not so much as one word to him" ("The Book of the Patriarch Job; p. 194). But the period of" seven days" was appropriate to mournings, (Gen_1:10 Eze_3:15) and if they could stay with him one day and one night without speaking, why not seven? Food would be brought them, and they might sleep rolled up in their begeds. The long silence may be accounted for by the fact that "among the Jews," and among Orientals generally, "it is a point of decorum, and one dictated by a fine and true feeling, not to speak to a person in deep affliction until he gives an intimation of a desire to be comforted" (Cook). So long as Job kept silence they had to keep silence, at least so far as he was concerned. They might speak to any attendants who drew near, and they might speak one to another. Note the words which follow: And none spake a word unto him None spake to him; but no etiquette imposed complete silence on them. For they saw that his grief was very great. So great that he could not as yet bear to be spoken to.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain And none spake a word unto him.
Job_2:13
And none spake a word unto him.
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Silence, not speech, the best service of friendship in sorrow
Here is a demonstration of true friendship. Note the way in which these friends at first endeavoured to comfort Job. They did not speak.
I. Silence is the strongest evidence of the depth of our sympathy towards a suffering friend.
1. The comforting power of a friend lies in the depth of his sympathy.
2. Silence is a better expression of deep sympathy than speech.
II. Silence is most consistent with our ignorance of Divine providence towards our suffering friend. How little we know of Gods procedure in the affairs of human life: So long as these friends kept silence they acted as comforters; but as soon as they launched into speech they became Jobs tormentors.
III. Silence is most congenial with the mental state of our suffering friend. The soul in deep sorrow seeks silence and solitude. Mere word-condolers are soul- tormentors. Then be silent in scenes of sorrow; overflow with genuine sympathy, but do not talk. (Homilist.)
Silent sympathy
Bishop Myriel had the art of sitting down and holding his tongue for hours, by the side of the man who had lost the wife he had loved, or of a mother bereaved of her child. (Victor Hugo.)
For they saw that his grief was very great.--
The trials of Job, and his consolations under them
They saw that his grief was very great. Job was the friend of God, and the favourite of heaven: a person known in the gates as an upright judge, and a public blessing; his seasonable bounties made the widows heart rejoice, and his liberal charities were as eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. Yet of him it is said: his grief was very great. But the faithful and compassionate God, in whom this patriarch placed all his confidence, sustained his fainting mind, and strengthened his heart in his agonising struggles.
I. The nature, variety, and severity of Jobs calamities. His trials began with the loss of all his wealth and property. His afflictions came with an accumulating force. From his honours and usefulness he was driven, with as much rapidity as from his other sources of comfort. The mournful consequences of being visited with a singular distemper, and of his being stripped of his property and bereaved of his children, was the desertion of those who had formerly professed to venerate his character, and the total loss of influence and reputation in the places of concourse. The general opinion was that God had forsaken him, and therefore men might despise and revile him. Even the wife of his bosom added to his distress. And Job sometimes in Ills depression lost all sense of Gods favour.
II. The causes assigned why an unerring and righteous God permitted so great and good a man as Job to be so singularly afflicted. Afflictions cannot come upon us without the Divine permission. But Jobs friends perverted this sentiment.. They urged that all calamities are the punishments of sin secretly allowed, or freely indulged in. Job must have been living in the transgression of the Divine commandments or he would not have been so sorely afflicted. It is made an argument against religion, that its highest attainments cannot exempt the godly from calamities. The just are often more tried than other men. But the truth is, that God is glorified by the afflictions of His children, and their best interests are promoted thereby.
1. Jobs trials were designed and calculated to convince him, and to convince the saints in every age, that God is sovereign in His dispensations. He claims it as His right to order the lot of His children on earth according to His own unerring wisdom. So important is the habitual persuasion of the Divine Sovereignty, that in chapter 38, the Almighty is represented as pleading His own cause in this respect. He is the great First Cause, of whom and for whom are all things. His people may well trust in God, though He hides His countenance; venerate their Heavenly Father, though He corrects them; and walk by faith, not by sight. Much of religion lies in submitting to the sovereignty of God, especially when the events of Providence appear to us peculiarly mysterious.
2. Job was tried in order to correct and remove his imperfections, and to promote in his soul that spiritual life which Divine grace had already begun. History represents Job as devoted to God, eminent for holiness, and distinguished for the most active benevolence and extensive usefulness. But there were certain blemishes which needed the powerful influence of the fiery furnace to purify and eradicate. There was a spirit of dejection, fretfulness, and distrust, which at times prevailed over his heroic patience. And there was a self-righteous opinion of his own goodness. With too presumptuous a confidence he wishes to argue matters even with a holy God. His arrogant language he penitently confesses and laments in the last chapter of the book. His tribulation wrought humility and self-abasement, so did it also work patience. His sufferings also increased his compassion for the afflicted.
3. Jobs trials were intended to convince him, and to convince mankind, that though God afflicts the dearest of His children, yet He most seasonably and graciously imparts to them both support and deliverance. We cannot expect temporal deliverance and exaltation, like that of Job, but we may be sure that we shall receive of the Lords hand a double recompense of joy for all our sorrow.
III. The considerations which supported and relieved the mind of Job in his days of adversity and tribulation.
1. Seeing the hand of God in all his afflictions. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.
2. The full persuasion that his Redeemer would never abandon him.
3. The prospect of resurrection from the dead, a believing persuasion, and a lively hope of eternal happiness beyond the grave. Although immortality was not then brought to light by any outward revelation, the Spirit of God wrought in this illustrious patriarch that genuine faith which is the evidence of things not seen, and which enabled him to connect humble faith in an ever-living Redeemer with the lively hope of an inheritance in the heavens. (A. Bonar.)
The calamity
Someone says, God had one Son without sin, but no Son without sorrow. The line of saints has been a striking one. Men burdened with terrific duties, overwhelmed with affliction, stoned and sawn asunder, persecuted, afflicted, tormented. There is a matter of subsidiary but yet striking interest to which we must advert, namely, the prominence given to Satan in connection with this affliction. The gospel theory of affliction does not name him. Whom God loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. But here Satan is the accuser, the adversary, and he, with Gods permission, brings upon Job all his troubles. But although in the early twilight of truth all things are not discerned so clearly as in gospel noonday, it is striking how near the fullest truth the writer comes. There have been darkling thoughts in the minds of men on this matter. Some few shallow spirits have never sufficiently resisted temptation to feel its reality and force; nor sufficiently sympathised with the sorrow of the world to feel the mystery of evil. There have been three great lines of thought on this matter of the principle of evil. There have been those who have thought that the Evil One was the Great God, the Lord Almighty. Sometimes they have developed this into the basis of religion, like the devil worshippers in Santhalistan, in Southern India, and in Ceylon. Sometimes they have made it only the basis of their practical life, as the fraudulent, who, in England, in the nineteenth century, believe the god of falsehood and of fraud a stronger providence than the God of truth and honour; or the despairing and remorseful, who think God vengeance only. Sometimes, as in the old Manichean doctrine, men have shrunk from believing in the supremacy of an Evil Deity, but have believed him equal in power to the Good God, and have explained all the mixing of human conditions by the divided sovereignty which governs all things here. And Ormuzd, the god of light, and Ahriman, the god of darkness, have sat on level thrones, confronting one another in constant but unprogressive conflict. The writer of the Book of Job had never lapsed into the despair that deemed evil supreme, nor into that alarm which feared it was equal in power to God. According to him, Satan is powerless to inflict outward trouble or inward temptation, excepting as permitted by the Lord. Substantially, the doctrine of this book on the power of evil is the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of the devout in all ages. Give heed to it. Evil is not Divine in its power, nor eternal in its mastery over men. It works within strictest limits; the enemy only by permission can touch either soul or body. Be not afraid, nor yield to despair. Love is the supreme and the eternal thing; therefore rejoice. Accusing Job--God gives Satan liberty and power to afflict. The affliction is suggested by Jobs enemy, with the hope of destroying his integrity. It is permitted by God with an intent very different; namely, that of developing it. It is no vivisection of a saint that is permitted merely to gratify curiosity as to the point at which the most vigorous vitality of goodness will break down. Little knowing the Divine issue which would proceed from his assault, the enemy goes forth to his envious and hateful task. There is an awful completeness about this calamity of Job. The strokes of it are so contrived that, although some interval may be between them, they are all reported in the same day.
1. Observe that affliction is by Gods ordinance part of the general lot of man. A state of perfect happiness, if such were possible, would not be suitable for a world of imperfect virtue.
2. We should not be astonished when afflictions touch us. We all get into the way of assuming that somehow we are to be exempt from the usual ills.
3. Remember that a universal experience has testified that affliction has its service, and adversity its sweetness. Without affliction who could avoid worldliness? It is the sorrows of this life that raise both eye and expectation to the joys of the life to come. Without affliction there would be but little refinement--no tender ministries, no gracious compassion, no self-forgetful sympathy. All the passive virtues, which are so essential to character, thrive under it--such as endurance, patience, meekness, humility. Prosperity coarsens and scars the conscience; affliction gives it tenderness. The necessity for stronger faith itself strengthens it.
4. It is but a deduction from this to add: Remember, therefore, affliction is not hate, but love. Whom God loveth He chasteneth. Lord Bacon forgot Job when he uttered his fine aphorism: Prosperity was the blessing of the Old Testament, but adversity of the new. (Richard Clover.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 2:13 Job’s friends sat on the ground to identify…
2:13 Job’s friends sat on the ground to identify with Job’s suffering (see 2:8). • The standard period for mourning the death of a notable person or for acknowledging other disastrous news was seven days and nights (Gen 50:10; 1 Sam 31:13; see also Ezek 3:14-15).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.