The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him?”

Job 1:8-9

By reputation, Job’s character was exemplary: Job was honest inside and out, a man of his word, who was totally devoted to God and hated evil with a passion (1:1, MSG). There was “no one on earth like him” (1:8). Now that’s saying something. 

And Satan was well aware of Job’s integrity and his blessings. After all, up to no good: “roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it” (1:7, 2:2), he was looking for someone, anyone, to put to the test. Job would be perfect, considering God had none more righteous. But Satan had seen the great hedge of protection God put around Job and his family and everything he had (1:10), and that hedge was impenetrable. Whew, God’s hedges around those who fear God (1:1) cannot be breached without permission. 

Satan persisted: “But reach out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face” (1:11). Herein lies Satan’s reciprocity theology: Job worships you, God, because you have blessed him; if he loses those blessings, he will turn away from you. 

In the end Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing (1:22), and he still maintains his integrity (2:3). He accepted not only good but trouble from God (2:10). And Satan left Job alone.  

Two big questions come to mind, questions to which I don’t really find an answer aside from God’s omniscience:

• Why did God bring up Job to Satan in the first place?

• Why did God take down His hedge of protection?

A couple of lessons I did learn: 

• The devil can’t make me curse God and lie down and die. I make the choice whether to hang onto my integrity or not (2:9).  

• God told Satan “you must spare his life” (2:6). So too, our eternal life is never Satan’s for the taking once we believe. Jesus said it well, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28). 

Nancy P