Before we look at the story set out in the passage, we need to be clear that the main point of it is the nature of man's relationship to God. Verse 9 asks this question: 'Would Job worship you (God) if he got nothing out of it?' This is a key question in relation to what occurs.

'1-3. A vivid little picture is given of Job, the good man who worships God and who enjoys great prosperity, which should be understood as meaning that God approves of him. According to Deuteronomic teaching, Job was prosperous because he obeyed God who had rewarded him because of his good life. 1 :4-5. Job's care in avoiding any evil action extends to his family and he offers sacrifices on behalf of all his children to maintain purity within his whole household.

1:6-12. Satan is introduced. The Old Testament refers very rarely to this mysterious being; whose name means 'adversary' or 'opponent'. The impression given of Satan in the Old Testament is rather different from that in the New. In this passage Satan is represented as an angelic being, under the control of God. He is not shown as the adversary of God, but of man. He is hostile to Job's happiness and prosperity. The passage does not answer any questions as to why this mysterious being is amongst the angelic beings of heaven, or why he is so hostile to man, but he represents an influence which we know, from experience, exists. The voice of Satan spoke through the snake to the first woman in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3: 1-5). Although Satan is not shown as God's adversary in Job 1-2, his hostility to man's happiness and prosperity implies opposition to God's desire that man should enjoy the blessings of God's creation (Genesis 1: 26-31). Satan remains a mysterious figure in Job 1-2, but is permitted by God to test Job's faith. The question behind the testing is whether Job will stop worshipping God if all his prosperity and happiness is taken away from him. Do we worship God only because of what we get from him in material blessings, or is there a deeper need in man's nature for a personal relationship with God which does not depend on our physical circumstances? Genesis 1: 27 indicates that God made man in such a way that he could have a deep personal relationship with God, unlike any other creature; because man- was in some way like God, he could love God. Another question arises: Does love depend on material circumstances and physical happiness, or is there a deeper aspect of it which continues when these things no longer exist?

The words of God in 1: 12 mean that in the first stage of testing Job's faith in God, Satan is permitted to take away from Job everything that he has, but Job himself must not be harmed.

1: 13-2: 13. The onslaughts of Satan are described. Job loses his children, herds and flocks and property. He feels intense grief and mourns for his losses but does not lose his faith in the goodness of God (1 :20-22).

2: 1-6. Satan's attacks on Job have been unsuccessful so far, but he persists in asking God to let him go further. Satan's words in 2:4-5 indicate that to preserve the most precious thing he has- his health and Iife-a man will give up anything. This attitude rejects the possibility of self-giving or self-sacrifice, such as the suffering Servant of God (Isaiah 52-53) accepts. God permits Satan to attack Job's health but will not allow Satan to take away Job's life, over which God alone has power.

2: 7-10. Satan afflicts Job with a horrible disease, which we need not try to identify, but it made him so ill and disgusting to others that he left his house and went out to the rubbish dump of the town, to remove his uncleanness from other human beings. Leviticus 13: 46 says this of a man who has a dreaded skin disease such as leprosy: 'He remains unclean as long as he has the disease, and he must live outside the camp, away from the others.' His wife is so horrified by what has happened to Job that she tells him to die, to escape from his intolerable misery and illness. Her understanding of God is seen in 2: 9. She understands retributive punishment and tells Job to be deliberately blasphemous, by cursing God, so that God will then kill Job as a punishment. Job, however, refuses to complain and still holds on to his faith in a good God.

2: 11-13. Three of Job's friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, hear of Job's afflictions and come to comfort him, but when they see him they are so appalled by the state he is in that they begin to mourn for him, as for a dead man. They wept and wailed, and then sat for seven days in silence, another sign of mourning. Satan had reduced Job to a state where physical life remained in him but everything that had been a blessing to him-children, herds, flocks, property, health, his wife's love and the companionship of his friends-was destroyed. Did the life that still remained to him have any meaning at all? Did his faith in God mean anything?