So, Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. — Job 2:7
A Second Assembly: God Reaffirms Job’s Righteousness
Job 2 opens with a deliberate echo of chapter 1: “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD” (v. 1). The scene is Heaven’s court once more, not a mythological curiosity but a theological revelation. The Accuser must still present himself before the Lord, a point not to be missed—Satan is not free. He moves only as God permits.
I have not been able to find the exact quote’s location, but it is often attributed to Luther that he said, “The devil is God’s devil.” As said in the previous chapter, Satan is a dog on a leash. He is subordinate to the divine sovereignty, an unwilling instrument of the Lord’s good and gracious will—even when his attacks seem most vicious.
God repeats His declaration of Job’s righteousness, but this time with greater emphasis. He says, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the Earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause” (v. 3). Here, the language becomes more severe: “you incited Me against him… without cause.” That is, Job’s suffering was not disciplinary. It was not the result of hidden sin, as his friends will claim. His trials were not punishment. Rather, Job’s suffering happened for no reason. Yes, that “reason” is Satan’s inaccurate accusations, but it is unjust. God is not experimenting on Job—He is vindicating him.
From a Lutheran perspective, this verse is a direct affront to every theology of works and glory. The three friends will later insist Job must have sinned, but the Lord says the opposite. There is no cause. This is critical. The cross comes for those who suffer for no reason. Job suffers unjustly, and that makes him a type of Christ—the righteous one who bears affliction without guilt.
Skin for Skin: The Devil’s Theology
Satan is not satisfied. He sneers, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life” (v. 4). The meaning of this phrase has been debated, but its intent is clear. Satan accuses Job of loving his own life more than God. In the first test, Satan struck Job’s economy and children. But now he proposes a deeper assault: “Stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!” (v. 5).
The devil’s theology is this: man loves self above all. Remove comfort, afflict the body, and the veneer of faith will collapse. Here, Satan unmasks himself as the prince of cynicism. He believes no one truly loves God—only what God gives. Faith in him is transactional—people only believe in Him when He gives them good things. In this moment, Job becomes a battlefield between two theologies: the theology of glory, which expects blessings for obedience, and the theology of the cross, which holds fast to God even when all blessings vanish.
God replies, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life” (v. 6). Again, divine permission is granted, but with limits. This is crucial in pastoral theology. Suffering does not mean God has abandoned the believer. It may mean the very opposite—that God considers the believer worthy of this cruciform witness.
The Boils: The Collapse of Flesh
Job’s affliction now touches his own body: “So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (v. 7). This is no superficial disease. Later descriptions reveal skin blackened, bones burning, breath repulsive, and flesh clinging to bone (cf. 30:17, 30; 19:17, 20). The man once called “greatest of all the people of the East” (1:3) now sits in ashes, scraping his dead skin with broken pottery.
Luther’s pastoral reflections on affliction echo here. In a sermon on Psalm 6, he writes, “It is God’s way to let His saints be tormented and tortured so that they are weary of life and desire death; and then He rescues them” (WA 10/1/1:193). The affliction is not meaningless, neither is it deserved. But it is real, and God does not shield His saints from the deepest human pain. Job becomes a mirror of Christ’s suffering: body broken, surrounded by scoffers, left seemingly alone.
Job’s Wife: The Voice of Despair
Then comes a blow not from Satan, but from one who should be a comfort: “Then his wife said to him, ‘Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!’” (v. 9). Her words echo Satan’s goal: to provoke Job to curse God. Her counsel could be malicious or despairing—it has long been debated since the Church Fathers. What is clear is that she cannot bear to see her husband suffer so grotesquely. Yet despair always leads to false theology. The temptation to “curse God and die” is real, even today, as suffering saints wonder whether death is preferable to faith in a seemingly absent God.
Job replies with lament-tinged correction: “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (v. 10). The verse again concludes with this crucial summary: “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” This verse stands as an anchor for all Christians in suffering. Job is not stoic. He is not unemotional. But he does not blaspheme. He does not turn from God. He continues to receive his affliction from the Lord’s hand—not because he understands it, but because he trusts the Giver.
Luther taught that we are not to judge God’s will and works by our reason, but by His Word. Job clings to the Word of God—even when no word comes. That is faith. That is worship in the ash heap.
The Friends Arrive: A Prelude to Conflict
The chapter ends with a quiet moment that carries deep theological weight: “Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place… For they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him, and to comfort him” (v. 11). They begin rightly. “They sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great” (v. 13). They practiced the ministry of presence, which is a vital pastoral practice—that simply being present in a person’s suffering is more than sufficient than saying the right words. Before they spoke their errors, they acted as true friends. They joined Job in his suffering. They did not rush to fix or explain. They sat in silence.
For seven days and nights.
Here is a profound pastoral truth: silence can be holier than speech. In the face of grief, explanations can become weapons. But presence, silent and faithful, is Christlike. As Isaiah says of our Lord, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4).
Faith on the Edge of Death
Job 2 closes not with theological clarity but with bodily ruin, relational sorrow, and impending confrontation. Satan has failed yet again—Job has not cursed God. But the real test now begins—not of Job’s health, but of his theology. This is true of every Christian’s suffering. Our anfechtung is always a test of our theology. His friends will soon speak, and they will say what many will say: that suffering must mean guilt, that pain is punishment, and that the truly righteous do not suffer.
They are wrong.
But before we rebuke them, we must listen to Job. In chapter 3, he will speak at last. And he will not be tame. But for now, let us sit in the ashes. Let us hear the silence. And let us learn that faith does not mean smiling through the storm; it means worshiping even through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4).
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