So let me see if I understand this. God singles out Job to Satan, because he is blameless and abstains from evil. Satan argues that it is only because of all the wonderful things God has done for Job and the outcome would be different if it were taken away from him. So God makes a deal with the devil and allows him free reign in Job's life, with the only condition being he cannot kill him. Satan then proceeds to destroy his family, all of Job's wealth is taken from him and finally he is physically inflicted with disease to the point of contemplating suicide. To make matters worse, his so called friends keep nagging and discouraging him, saying that all this is somehow Job's fault, but despite all this Job never blames God. So imagine my surprise that when Job finally does question what is going on, God shows up and completely dodges the question and instead starts spouting off how great and glorious He is and how dare that Job should ask such questions, because Job isn't God. Maybe I am missing something in all this, but this book doesn't portray God in a positive light. What it shows is an indifferent puppet master, who in an effort to glorify Himself, collaborates with His worst enemy to inflict His creation with suffering, all the while ignoring any pleas of understanding from them. Is this really the character of a benevolent creator who desires relationship with His creation? If I wanted to build character in my child, like so many claim was God's intention in this story, I wouldn't allow a sadistic bully to beat them to a bloody pulp and then brush them off when they sought me for understanding about what was going on.
Hi,
The points in Job are perhaps more than one.
Job did not know, what was going on before seeing God.
He did afterwards.
The question is, does merely seeing God impart knowledge?
Without lying, it would be impossible for Job to recant, before first God talked to him out of the clouds, then later actually seeing God.
He recanted though. He was also able to write the book of Job.
Job is perhaps one of the most Mystical books there are, apart from other prophets.
God, set Satan up. Remember what Jesus says about Satan. He is a liar. He, Jesus might also say that Satan is a murderer. Lies though, if you take those words of Jesus, might or is, what Satan was called on in the book of Job.
Even if not, God went at him.
G: Where have you been?
S: I have been patrolling the earth.
( Potentially or definitely a lie.)
G: Have you seen Job? .......
S: That's because you favor him.
Satan is telling God, That He is wrong.
G: Okay. Prove it. (Not those words, but that is the meaning)
Next event, with Satan
G: Have you seen Job? And you were wrong.
S: That's because.....
G: Okay, prove it.
Still Satan is shown to be wrong, and Job never had a clue as to what the reasons were, that this was all happening to him.
God was making a point to us, and to Satan, that God knows more than Satan.
Seeing God, is quite the reward. Job only heard of God, prior to that. He had never seen God before.
God to Job and us, is saying that when things happen to us on earth, it is not always for our sins.
Sometimes, what happens to us, is for a bigger issue.
We, and Job learned that God can and does put limits on Satan, that even Satan obeys.
Satan is allowed to have some sort of access to God.
Job's wife was not killed, thus telling us something about marriage, in terms of personhood and oneness. (The two becoming one)
Job had everything doubled as the way God Treats those that work for Him in any capacity. He rewards.
We learned about potentially life after death in Job's children.
He was not given twice as many children on earth as he had before. He was given the same amount on earth as before.
It is possible that Job's deceased children, were not in fact deceased as we think of deceased. Rather, they all might be alive still, but alive with or near God, and as such Job's children after God showed Satan up, were possibly doubled also, along with the doubling of everything else Job had.
Further, God introduces the idea of the words of two of Job's friends, being in The Bible, but not being correct.
G: Two of your three friends did not speak rightly about me. (Again, that is not exactly what God said, but it is correct.)
God introduces us to the concept of things written in The Bible, that God, Himself, Says are not to be believed.
(Satan's words, all of them, two of Job's three friends, and later Paul, when Paul says that he is speaking on his own, and not from God, or anyplace that God does not cause those words to be spoken, or written.)
LOVE,
