Job appears in the Bible as a true story and it is regarded as such in other Scripture:
As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful (Jas. 5:10–11).
Job, however, despite having the book named after him, being the protagonist, and having much to say, is not the key to the book’s significance in redemptive history. The key feature of Job that comes up later in the Bible, as well as explains things earlier in the Bible, is the introduction of Satan by name.
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God” (Rev. 12:9-11).
This passage alone shows that Job is regarded as portraying straightforward reality. Satan had an office in the heavens and he has now been deposed from that office by the work of Jesus Christ, who is now our advocate in the heavens.
But Job is not simply an instance or example of Satan occupying his former office. It is not merely recounting an event that demonstrates a truth. Rather, it is the beginning of a key component of God’s strategy to make good on his promise to destroy Satan while saving his hostages (Gen. 3:15).
ENTICING SATAN TO THE GAME
Satan had been active before. He had (as explained in Revelation) worked through a serpent to cause Adam and Eve to break faith with God. Likely, he also worked especially hard on diverting Cain from trusting God (Gen. 4:7).
But the book of Job shows God deliberately enticing Satan into a contest. He even allows Satan to give himself a massive advantage comparing Job to Adam and Eve. Our first parents had everything, and Satan had to make the temporary prohibition of the Tree of Wisdom appear intolerable. In the case of Job, he got to inflict horrific deprivation by God’s permission and power. When Job passes the initial test, Satan gets God to turn Job’s own “body” against him, both his biological and social bodies.
Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! All that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face” (Job 2:4–5).
Two things follow. First, Job gets painfully afflicted in his skin. Second, his “flesh and bone” speaks Satan’s words: “Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die'” (Job 2:9).
The three friends then follow the pattern of Job’s wife. His “people” are Satan’s pawns.
Satan wants to prove to YHWH that He has no friends and can never have friends. And he hopes that Job will do more than disobey like Adam and Eve did. He wants Job to renounce and hate God.
And God starts it all. He singles out Job for Satan’s attention. Job never learns why these things happened to him. But, even we, the readers, learning about what was going on in the heavens, are not given an explanation. The story may be interesting, but if Job was told what had been going on, that knowledge would not answer his question. The riddles Job hears from God are also riddles to us. We never learn the reason God incited Satan to start this cause. The book of Job raises questions it does not answer.
Indeed, God seems to want Satan to believe that he instigated the contest.
Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason (Job 2:3).
But Satan never brought Job up! God was the one who did the inciting (Job 1:8).
We can understand why Satan wanted to prove something to God. But why did God feel the need to prove anything to Satan? And why does he treat Satan as if the initiative was his?
SATAN LEARNS THE DANCE
Satan entered more contests with God and he didn’t always lose. We run into him by name in David’s reign (see 1 Chr. 21:1). He is mentioned as if we should already know who he is (which makes sense since Job introduced him to us). Satan successfully tempted David to number all Israel. Like the book of Job, that contest ends with an appearance by God himself (1 Chr. 21). David is restored, but it appears that Satan won that match to some degree.
At the time of the return from exile, the prophet Zechariah sees Satan accusing Israel through the nation’s representative.:
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” (Zech. 3:1–2).
That answer deals with Satan’s condemnation, though it is not a complete or satisfying answer. The angel of YHWH basically says that Satan must be wrong because God has preserved the nation and restored them. I am not sure Satan felt defeated. He may simply have believed that he had been delayed but could eventually prevail.
So here in Job is a story about a righteous Gentile king in what was probably the time of the Patriarchs, before the calling of Abraham. If God, pointing out Job’s righteousness to Satan, caused Satan to want a contest, what would happen when he hears that Abram has been chosen to bless all the families of the earth in his seed? Or when he hears that the Israelites are God’s special possession among all the nations of the earth? What started as an argument about a singularly righteous Gentile ruler could easily become an obsession over a chosen nation. And once Israel had a representative head, a king, that king would be a choice target for Satan to prove, this time, that God has no real friends. Thus, when the monarchy is established, the book of Job is written as part of the wisdom literature because it is especially relevant. Israel, and therefore Israel’s king, is the new Job and the new target.
SATAN & JESUS
So when Jesus begins his ministry, Satan is present, by name (Matt. 4:10; Mark 1:13), as a well-known antagonist. He has already been introduced.
It is clear in the Gospels that Satan has learned the steps to the dance and this is just a new iteration. He tries to get Jesus to refuse God’s plan for an easier one (Matt. 16:23; Mark 8:33), and then later goes all the way and tries to get Jesus to despair (Luke 22:3; John 13:27), working through his three friends like Job (Matt. 26:36ff).
Satan’s plan, however, is instrumental in bringing about his own demise and our salvation. God started everything, even while treating the games as being of Satan’s own devising. Ultimately, it was all of God’s instigation. He enticed Satan to doom himself.
LEVIATHAN CRUSHED UNDER YOUR FEET
One of the reasons we know that Paul’s letter to the Romans is a theodicy, is that his argument (1-11) begins with a quotation from Habakkuk (2:4; Rom. 1:17) and concludes with a quote from Job (41:35; Rom. 11:35). But maybe there is more to it. Toward the conclusion of the entire epistle, Paul mentions Satan by name, seemingly for the first time: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” (Rom. 16:20).
But maybe Paul has been alluding to Satan earlier. Paul quotes from the book of Job after repeatedly in only a couple of paragraphs declaring that Israel’s trespass has brought salvation to the nations (including Israel if they will repent). This is the climax to what he has been arguing all along, that human unfaithfulness and unrighteousness has brought about the propitiation showing God righteous and faithful (Rom. 3:1-8, 21-26; 5:16, 20-21; 9:14-24). Israel’s unrighteousness provoked the wrath of God but paradoxically placated it in the culminating trespass of killing Jesus.
As mentioned above, all the Gospels show Satan opposing Jesus. Eventually, after giving up on trying to offer him a path forward that avoided the cross, he led him to abandonment, betrayal, and the cross. Furthermore, Jesus told his Jewish opponents that they were in league with the Devil (John 8:44). Describing Israel’s sin as being the occasion for world salvation means that Satan’s plan has led to his own undoing.
Jeffrey Meyers has pointed out (part one) how God’s last speech about Leviathan points to his control of Satan. It is that speech that Paul recites (changing in from first-person to third) in his exultation over the wisdom of God who has “has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all” (Rom. 11:32).
Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook
or press down his tongue with a cord?
Can you put a rope in his nose
or pierce his jaw with a hook?
Will he make many pleas to you?
Will he speak to you soft words?
Will he make a covenant with you
to take him for your servant forever?
Will you play with him as with a bird,
or will you put him on a leash for your girls?
Will traders bargain over him?
Will they divide him up among the merchants?
Can you fill his skin with harpoons
or his head with fishing spears?
Lay your hands on him;
remember the battle—you will not do it again!
Behold, the hope of a man is false;
he is laid low even at the sight of him.
No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up.
Who then is he who can stand before me?
Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?
Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine (Job 41:1–11; emphasis added).
Job couldn’t “draw out Leviathan with a fishhook.” But God could and did, using Job as His first bait.
With the merciful you show yourself merciful;
with the blameless man you show yourself blameless;
with the purified you show yourself pure;
and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous (Ps. 18:25–26).
Whoever misleads the upright into an evil way will fall into his own pit (Prov. 28:10a).
Behold, the wicked man conceives evil
and is pregnant with mischief
and gives birth to lies.
He makes a pit, digging it out,
and falls into the hole that he has made.
His mischief returns upon his own head,
and on his own skull his violence descends (Ps. 7:14–16).
Mark Horne is a member of the Civitas group, and holds an M.Div from Covenant Theological Seminary. He is assistant pastor at Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, and is the executive director of Logo Sapiens Communications. He writes at www.SolomonSays.net, and is the author, most recently, of “Solomon Says: Directives for Young Men” from Athanasius Press.