Today, I am reading and commenting on  Job 1-5.

When Satan, the Adversary, first appeared before Gd in this account, he claimed that Job was only godly because God had blessed him.  So, God gave Satan permission to take all of Job’s wealth from him.  When Job received news that all of the things which this world says gives life value had been taken from him, he praised God while saying, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.”  When God pointed out that Satan had failed to break Job, Satan claimed that Job remained godly only because he was healthy.  So, God allowed Satan to afflict Job with various maladies.  When Job’s wife could no longer take seeing her husband suffer, she told him to curse God and die (I want to note that I think the reaction of Job’s wife actually reflects how much she loved him and wanted his suffering to end).  Even here Job refused to turn away from God.  His take was that we should accept trouble from God’s hands just was we would accept good things from Him.  Then finally when Job can take his misery no longer, he cries out to wish that he had never been born, but even here he does not lose his faith in God.  I have known people whose faith allowed them to face adversity in this way.  I pray that I might follow their example if I ever face such troubles (although I pray even more that I never face them).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.