From Bad to Worse: The Problem of God

Incited: Mislead, You cause or Provoke me to take adverse action against my son, my servant my child.

Incite: It means to allure or stir someone to a course of action that he would not normally take.

The God of the universe is conceding that the Satan had persuaded him to act toward, to destroy him, to swallow him up, to ruin him even though Job hadn’t done anything wrong.

In addition, God was the one who introduce Satan to Job.

What does the word incited mean in verse 3.

This is a verb so the one who is taking the action is Satan. And who is the object of his action, God. How?

Marvin Pope

This verb is generally used in a derogatory sense, as here and in 36:18; cf. ; ; ; . But it may also have a favorable sense, as in 36:16 and . Yahweh here gives the Satan credit for instigating the experiment.

Pope, M. H. (2008). Job: Introduction, translation, and notes (Vol. 15, p. 19). New Haven; London: Yale University Press.

Why Does All These 3 Friends?

On the surface, the evidence seems to suggest that God allowed Satan to attach, afflict

The Book of Job D. The Second Scene before Yahweh (2:1–6)

The test against Job had been brutally executed, as attested by the verb ruin (Piel of Heb. bālaʿ, “swallow”). It also carried a very sharp barb, as connoted by the phrase without cause or for no purpose (Heb. ḥinnām; cf. 1:9). This wording focuses on the crux of Job’s testing. It is difficult enough to endure hardship to achieve a specific goal, but to suffer misfortune for no apparent reason plunges a person into agonizing self-doubt. Coping with the sense of meaninglessness is more difficult than coping with the material losses. The use of without cause here sets up a point of tension with the Satan’s use of this phrase in the first scene before Yahweh. Whereas the Satan had conjectured that Job’s fear of God was not without cause, i.e., Job feared God for selfish reasons, Yahweh in turn rebuked the Satan with the assertion that Job’s trial had proved to be without cause, i.e., the Satan’s accusations about Job were groundless. Thus the test has proved that the Satan’s accusations against Job were “without cause” or had no inherent worth, and that Job feared God “without cause”—Job trusted God with a pure heart filled with love for God, not for the benefits God had bestowed upon him. The Satan’s skepticism about Job’s character had proved to be completely wrong.

The first Problem with God

He always has a cause or reason for our suffering but He is not obligated to tell us.

God didn’t tell Job why he was allowing this to happen in life and this is the lesson or take a-way for us.

You might not always understand why but you still have to hold to your integrity—you still have to fear God. You still have to prove to yourself that you serve God for know other reason expect but the mere fact that He is God. And this is hard.