Catholic Commentary on Job 2

"Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?" (Job 2:10)

Job's Second Test

In a second heavenly assembly the adversary claims Job's integrity is only skin-deep: stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones and he will curse you to your face. God permits the second test, protecting only Job's life. The adversary afflicts Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Job sits in the ashes scraping himself with broken pottery. His wife says: are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die. Job answers: you are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble? In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

His three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, come and sit with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights without speaking, for they see how great his suffering is. The Catechism identifies these seven days of silent presence as the model of compassionate accompaniment: sometimes the most valuable gift to the sufferer is not explanation but presence (CCC 1500). The friends are at their best here - before they open their mouths.

Living the Word

Brothers and sisters, Job's friends sat with him in silence for seven days. They had not yet spoken, and in that silence they were most faithful. The ministry of presence, the willingness to sit with suffering without rushing to explain it, is one of the most difficult and most valuable gifts we can offer. Be silent before you speak. Sit before you teach.

Prayer

Lord God, give us the wisdom to sit in silence with those who suffer before we open our mouths to explain. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

2
Job Loses His Health
1 On another day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan * 2:1 That is, the Accuser or the Adversary; here and throughout Job 2 also came with them to present himself before Him.
 
2 “Where have you come from?” said the LORD to Satan.
 
“From roaming through the earth,” he replied, “and walking back and forth in it.”
 
3 Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one on earth like him, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and shuns evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited Me against him to ruin him without cause.”
 
4 “Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give up all he owns in exchange for his life. 5 But stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”
 
6 “Very well,” said the LORD to Satan. “He is in your hands, but you must spare his life.”
 
7 So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. 8 And Job took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself as he sat among the ashes.
 
9 Then Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse † 2:9 Or Bless God and die!”
 
10 “You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?”
 
In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
Job’s Three Friends
 
11 Now when Job’s three friends-Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite-heard about all this adversity that had come upon him, each of them came from his home, and they met together to go and sympathize with Job and comfort him.
 
12 When they lifted up their eyes from afar, they could barely recognize Job. They began to weep aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust in the air over his head. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw how intense his suffering was.

*2:1 2:1 That is, the Accuser or the Adversary; here and throughout Job 2

†2:9 2:9 Or Bless

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