Why did God let Job suffer?

c. 357 · Antony, quoted by Athanasius, Life of Antony (Vita Antonii) 29

‘But if any one having in mind the history of Job should say, Why then hath the devil gone forth and accomplished all things against him; and stripped him of all his possessions, and slew his children, and smote him with evil ulcers? let such a one, on the other hand, recognise that the devil was not the strong man, but God who delivered Job to him to be tried. Certainly he had no power to do anything, but he asked, and having received it, he hath wrought what he did. So also from this the enemy is the more to be condemned, for although willing he could not prevail against one just man. For if he could have, he would not have asked permission. But having asked not once but also a second time, he shows his weakness and want of power. And it is no wonder if he could do nothing against Job, when destruction would not have come even on his cattle had not God allowed it.

384–396 · Ambrose of Milan, Letters (selection) 20.15

You see that permission is given to the devil, that the good may be tested. The evil one envies all progress in good, he tempts us in divers ways. He tried holy Job in his possessions, in his children, in pain of body. The stronger is tried in his own person, the weaker in that of another.

413–426 · Augustine of Hippo, City of God 1.9

Then, lastly, there is another reason why the good are afflicted with temporal calamities—the reason which Job’s case exemplifies: that the human spirit may be proved, and that it may be manifested with what fortitude of pious trust, and with how unmercenary a love, it cleaves to God.

1675–1680 · Stephen Charnock, Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God 9

Job’s integrity had not been so clear, nor his patience so illustrious, had not the devil been permitted to afflict him. God, by his wisdom, outwits Satan; when he by his temptations intends to pollute us and buffet us, God orders it to purify us; he often brings the clearest light out of the thickest darkness, makes poisons to become medicines.

1823 · Robert South, Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions, Volume 6 26

We have shewn, that it was not for Job’s sin that God afflicted him; but because he was freely pleased to do so: yet there was a reason of this pleasure, which was, to discover that grace of patience, given him by God, to the astonishment of the world, and the confutation of the Devil; whom we find so impudent as to bear God down to his face, that he had never a servant in the world who would suffer such things from him, without sinning against him. And was it not worth the sitting upon a dunghill, and seeing his substance scattered, his children struck dead, and himself mocked in his misery, to vindicate the honour of that God, who gave him all these things, from the Devil, the true common enemy? and to be recorded as a mirror of patience to all posterity? and to convince the world that there is something in virtue better than possessions, truer than friends, and stronger than Satan? Though this dealing was not an effect of God’s vindictive justice, but of his absolute power; yet it equally served both God’s glory and Job’s advantage.

1834 · Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: Job 2.5

Malignant as he was, he knew that God only could subject the holy man to this trial - another proof that Satan is under the control of the Almighty, and acts only as he is "permitted" to act in tempting and trying the good.

1911 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 57 (1911) 3255

Whatever Satan's end might be in tempting the Patriarch, God had an end which covered and compassed that of the destroyer—and that end was answered all along the line, from the first loss which happened among the oxen to the last taunt of his three accusers! There was never a question, in the heights of Heaven as to the ultimate issue! Eternal Mercy was putting forth its irresistible energy, and Job was made to bear up through the trial and to rise from it a wiser and a better man!

1922 · Alexander Whyte, Lord, Teach Us to Pray: Sermons on Prayer 7

The captivity of Job arose out of God’s pure and unchallengeable sovereignty, as we say. God deserted and forsook Job for reasons that were sufficient to Himself, and in which He had no counsellor. It was to silence the scoffs and sneers of Satan: it was to produce a shining example of submission and resignation, and trust in God, that would stand out to the end of time: and it was to perfect all these, and many other graces, in the great patriarch himself that Job was so forsaken of God, and had his faith and his trust in God put to such a terrible test.

1932 · Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 17

The calamities which befell Job, as seen from the human viewpoint appear to be mere misfortunes, accidents, chance happenings. But with further knowledge we see God behind it all, exercising complete control, giving the Devil permission to afflict so far but no farther, designing the events for the development of Job's patience and character, and using even the seemingly meaningless waste of the storm to fulfill His high and loving purposes.

1531 · Philip Melanchthon, The Apology of the Augsburg Confession Article VI: Of Confession and Satisfaction

Job is excused that he was not afflicted on account of past evil deeds, therefore afflictions are not always punishments or signs of wrath. Yea, terrified consciences are to be taught that other ends of afflictions are more important [that they should learn to regard troubles far differently, namely, as signs of grace], lest they think that they are rejected by God when in afflictions they see nothing but God's punishment and anger. The other more important ends are to be considered namely, that God is doing His strange work so that He may be able to do His own work, etc., as Isaiah teaches in a long discourse, chap. 28. And when the disciples asked concerning the blind man who sinned, John 9, 2. 3, Christ replies that the cause of his blindness is not sin, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. And in Jeremiah, 49, 12, it is said: They whose judgment was not to drink of the cup have assuredly drunken. Thus the prophets and John the Baptist and other saints were killed. Therefore afflictions are not always punishments for certain past deeds, but they are the works of God, intended for our profit, and that the power of God might be made more manifest in our weakness [how He can help in the midst of death].

1765 · John Wesley, Explanatory Notes on Job 12.6

Are secure - Job's friends had all supposed, that wicked men cannot prosper long in the world. This Job opposes, and maintains, that God herein acts as sovereign, and reserves that exact distribution of rewards and punishments for the other world.

1880 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 26 (1880) 1526

As neither he nor his companions could discover any palpable blot in Job upon which they could distinctly lay their finger, they bespattered him right and left with their groundless accusations. They made up, in venom, for the lack of evidence to back their charges. They felt sure that there must be some great sin in him to have procured such extraordinary afflictions and, therefore, by smiting him all over, they hoped to touch the sore place. Let them stand as a warning to us never to judge men by their circumstances and never to conclude that a man must be wicked because he has fallen from riches to poverty.

1885 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 31 (1885) 1839

Eliphaz and his friends had judged Job from their own point of view, making their own experience to be the standard. They, themselves, had prospered and, therefore, they inferred that if a man served God, he must necessarily prosper in worldly things—and that if he did not succeed as they had done, he must have been guilty of great crimes. Though they could not discover any actual fault in Job, they concluded, without further evidence, that he must have been a hypocrite and have acted oppressively to his servants, or have been unmindful of the claims of the poor, or in some other way have brought upon himself the wrath of God. It never entered their mind that so terrible a sickness and such a list of dreadful calamities could have befallen any man except as a punishment for special sin. They inferred virtue from prosperity, and sin from adversity.

1892 · Robert A. Watson, The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Job The Voice from the Storm, XXVII. Music in the Bounds of Law

The sufferer is a just man, a good man whom God Himself has pronounced to be perfect. Job is not afflicted because he has sinned. The author has set in the clearest possible light all arguments he could find for the old notion that transgression and wickedness alone are followed by suffering in this world. He has shown that this doctrine is not in accordance with fact, and has made the proof so clear that a thoughtful person could never afterwards remember the name of Job and hold that false view. But apart from the prologue, no explanation is given of the sufferings of the righteous in this life. The author never says in so many words that Job profited by his afflictions. It might be that the righteous man, tried by loss and pain, was established in his faith for ever, above all possibility of doubt. But this is not affirmed. It might be that men were purified by their sufferings, that they found through the hot furnace a way into the noblest life. But this is not brought forward as the ultimate explanation. Or it might be that the good man in affliction was the burden-bearer of others, so that his travail and blood helped their spiritual life. But there is no hint of this. Jehovah is to be vindicated. He appears; He speaks out of the storm, and vindicates Himself. Not, however, by showing the good His servant has gained in the discipline of bereavement, loss, and pain. It is by claiming implicit trust from men, by showing that their wisdom at its highest is foolishness to His, and that His administration of the affairs of His world is in glorious faithfulness as well as power.

1908 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Job 42.1-10

The close of the Book of Job must be taken in connection with its prologue, in order to get the full view of its solution of the mystery of pain and suffering. Indeed the prologue is more completely the solution than the ending is; for it shows the purpose of Job’s trials as being, not his punishment, but his testing. The whole theory that individual sorrows were the result of individual sins, in the support of which Job’s friends poured out so many eloquent and heartless commonplaces, is discredited from the beginning.

c. 198–203 · Tertullian, On Patience (De patientia) 14

Oh, happy also he who met all the violence of the devil by the exertion of every species of patience!—whom neither the driving away of his cattle nor those riches of his in sheep, nor the sweeping away of his children in one swoop of ruin, nor, finally, the agony of his own body in (one universal) wound, estranged from the patience and the faith which he had plighted to the Lord; whom the devil smote with all his might in vain. For by all his pains he was not drawn away from his reverence for God; but he has been set up as an example and testimony to us, for the thorough accomplishment of patience as well in spirit as in flesh, as well in mind as in body; in order that we succumb neither to damages of our worldly goods, nor to losses of those who are dearest, nor even to bodily afflictions. What a bier for the devil did God erect in the person of that hero! What a banner did He rear over the enemy of His glory, when, at every bitter message, that man uttered nothing out of his mouth but thanks to God, while he denounced his wife, now quite wearied with ills, and urging him to resort to crooked remedies! How did God smile, how was the evil one cut asunder, while Job with mighty equanimity kept scraping off the unclean overflow of his own ulcer, while he sportively replaced the vermin that brake out thence, in the same caves and feeding-places of his pitted flesh! And so, when all the darts of temptations had blunted themselves against the corslet and shield of his patience, that instrument of God’s victory not only presently recovered from God the soundness of his body, but possessed in redoubled measure what he had lost. And if he had wished to have his children also restored, he might again have been called father; but he preferred to have them restored him “in that day.” Such joy as that—secure so entirely concerning the Lord—he deferred; meantime he endured a voluntary bereavement, that he might not live without some (exercise of) patience.

256 · Cyprian of Carthage, On the Advantage of Patience (De bono patientiae) 18

The master, rich in estate, and the father, richer in children, is on a sudden neither master nor father! The wasting of wounds is added; and, moreover, an eating pest of worms consumes his festering and wasting limbs. And that nothing at all should remain that Job did not experience in his trials, the devil arms his wife also, making use of that old device of his wickedness, as if he could deceive and mislead all by women, even as he did in the beginning of the world. And yet Job is not broken down by his severe and repeated conflicts, nor the blessing of God withheld from being declared in the midst of those difficulties and trials of his, by the victory of patience. Tobias also, who, after the sublime works of his justice and mercy, was tried with the loss of his eyes, in proportion as he patiently endured his blindness, in that proportion deserved greatly of God by the praise of patience.

c. 370–419 · Jerome, Letters 118.3

Long ago this wealthy proprietor and still wealthier father was made by a sudden stroke destitute and bereaved. But as, in spite of all that befel him, he had not sinned before God or spoken foolishly, the Lord—exulting in the victory of his servant and regarding Job’s patience as His own triumph—said to the devil: “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity?” He finely adds the last clause because it is difficult for innocence to refrain from murmuring when it is overborne by misfortune; and to avoid making a shipwreck of faith when it sees that its sufferings are unjustly inflicted.

c. 386–397 · John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians 41.9

Job said not that which thou sayest unthankfully, “it were better not to have received,” but both for the one he gave thanks, saying, “The Lord gave;” and for the other he blessed God, saying, “The Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord for ever.” And his wife he thus silenced, justifying himself against her, and uttering those admirable words, “Have we received good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?” And yet after this a fiercer temptation befel him: yet was he not even thus unnerved, but in like manner bore it nobly and glorified God.

c. 1550–1551 · John Calvin, Commentary on James 5.11

We see for what end his history has been written. God suffered not his servant Job to sink, because he patiently endured his afflictions. Then he will disappoint the patience of no one.

1710 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on Job 1.20-22

The same that gave hath taken away; and may he not do what he will with his own? See how Job looks above instruments, and keeps his eye upon the first Cause. He does not say, "The Lord gave, and the Sabeans and Chaldeans have taken away; God made me rich, and the devil has made me poor;" but, "He that gave has taken;" and for that reason he is dumb, and has nothing to say, because God did it. He that gave all may take what, and when, and how much he pleases.

1901 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 47 (1901) 2711

God, by great afflictions, gave to His servant that usefulness for which he had possibly prayed, without knowing how it would come to him. A long-continued life of prosperity may not so truly glorify God as a life that is checkered by adversity. And God, who intended to put honor upon His servant, did as kings do when they confer the honor of knighthood—they strike with the back or flat of the sword—so God smote the Patriarch Job that He might raise him above his fellow men. The Lord intended to make him Job, the Patient One, but to that end He must make him Job the Sufferer.

1911 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 57 (1911) 3255

The Lord was full of pity to permit sharp trial to come upon Job for his good. There was more tender mercy in subjecting him to it than there would have been in screening him from it. False pity would have permitted the good man to die in his nest, but true pity put a thorn into it and made him mount aloft as the eagle! It was great mercy, after all, which took him out of the state in which he washed his steps with butter, and cast him into the mire, for thus he was weaned from the world and made to look the more eagerly for a better portion. No doubt, in Job's character, the Lord saw certain failings which we cannot see, which He desired to remove and perhaps He also marked some touches of Grace which needed to be supplied—and Divine Love undertook to complete his perfect character. Perhaps his prosperity had sunned him till he had grown somewhat hard in tone and sharp in judgment and, therefore, the Lord would soften and mellow his gracious spirit. The things lacking were no common virtues, for in these he was perfect, but certain rich and rare tints of the higher life—and these could not be imparted by any other means than severe suffering.

1911 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 57 (1911) 3255

Untold blessings were coming to the grand old man while he seemed to be losing all. It was not simply that he obtained a double portion at the end, but all along, every part of the testing process worked out his highest good. Now have we seen the end of the Lord and that end is unmingled goodness! The Lord was standing by every moment to stop the refining process when it had come to the proper point, so that no more of it should happen than was really beneficial and, at the same time, no less than should secure His gracious purpose. True mercy is bound, at times, to seem rough, for it might be a great and lifelong evil for the surgeon to stop the knife before its work is done. The Lord was wisely tender and tenderly wise with Job—and even in his case the sore affliction was not allowed to proceed a single degree beyond the necessary point of intensity. And when we come to look all Job's life through, we see that the Lord in mercy brought him out of it all with unspeakable advantage.

1865 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 11 (1865) 623

We are poor creatures to criticize such a man as Job—but still there was in him just a sprinkling of self-righteousness. I think, and his friends brought it out, Eliphaz and Zophar said such irritating things that poor Job could not help replying in strong terms about himself that were rather too strong, one thinks; there was a little too much self-justification. He was not proud as some of us are, of a very little—he had much to be proud of, as the world would allow—but yet there was the tendency to be exalted with it; and though the devil did not know it, perhaps if he had left Job alone, that pride might have run to seed, and Job might have sinned; but he was in such a hurry, that he would not let the ill seed ripen, but hastened to cut it up, and so was the Lord’s tool to bring Job into a more humble, and consequently a more safe and blessed state of mind.

1885 · George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Second Series 10

In the confusion of Job’s thoughts—how could they be other than confused, in the presence of the awful contradiction of two such facts staring each other in the face, that God was just, yet punishing a righteous man as if he were wicked?—while he was not yet able to generate, or to receive the thought, that approving love itself might be inflicting or allowing the torture—that such suffering as his was granted only to a righteous man, that he might be made perfect—I can well imagine that at times, as the one moment he doubted God’s righteousness, and the next cried aloud, ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,’ there must in the chaos have mingled some element of doubt as to the existence of God.

1885 · George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Second Series 10

Job was in the right when he said that he did not deserve to be in such wise punished for his sins: neither did he deserve to see the face of God, yet had he that crown of all gifts given him—and it was to see himself vile, and abhor himself. By very means of the sufferings against which he had cried out, the living one came near to him, and he was silent.

1885 · George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Second Series 10

No answer will do for him but the answer that God only can give; for who but God can justify God’s ways to his creature? From a soul whose very consciousness is contradiction, we must not look for logic; misery is rarely logical; it is itself a discord; yet is it nothing less than natural that, feeling as if God wronged him, Job should yet be ever yearning after a sight of God, straining into his presence, longing to stand face to face with him. He would confront the One. He is convinced, or at least cherishes as his one hope the idea, that, if he could but get God to listen to him, if he might but lay his case clear before him, God would not fail to see how the thing was, and would explain the matter to him—would certainly give him peace; the man in the ashes would know that the foundations of the world yet stand sure; that God has not closed his eyes, or—horror of all horrors—ceased to be just! Therefore would he order his words before him, and hear what God had to say; surely the Just would set the mind of his justice-loving creature at rest!

1885 · George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Second Series 10

They grow angry with him when he refuses to be persuaded against his knowledge of himself. They insist on his hypocrisy, he on his righteousness. Nor may we forget that herein lies not any overweening on the part of Job, for the poem prepares us for the right understanding of the man by telling us in the prologue, that God said thus to the accuser of men: ‘Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?’ God gives Job into Satan’s hand with confidence in the result; and at the end of the trial approves of what Job has said concerning himself. But the very appearance of God is enough to make Job turn against himself: his part was to have trusted God altogether, in spite of every appearance, in spite of every reality!

1888 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 34 (1888) 2009

Happy is that man who in prosperity can hear the voice of God in the tinkling of the sheep-bells of his abundant flocks, can hear Him in the lowing of the oxen which cover his fields and in the loving voices of dear children around him. But, mark—prosperity is a painted window which shuts out much of the clear light of God and only when the blue and the crimson and the golden tinge are removed is the glass restored to its full transparency. Adversity thus takes away tinge and color and dimness and we see our God far better than before—if our eyes are prepared for the light. The Lord had taken everything away from Job, and this paved the way to His giving him more of Himself. In the absence of other goods the good God is the better seen. In prosperity God is heard and that is a blessing. But in adversity God is seen and that is a greater blessing.

1898 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 44 (1898) 2583

Out of the whirlwind He spoke to Job and bade him gird up his loins and meet his Maker if he dared. Then it was that Job was brought to his right position and, at the end, he said, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear: but now my eyes see You. Therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." Then Job realized the benefit of his affliction—but not till then. When the Lord revealed to Job His supremacy, His eternal Glory, and in that light compelled him to see his own imperfection and nothingness—then the Patriarch's trials became sanctified to him.

1908 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Job 42.1-10

The epilogue in this last chapter shows the effect of it in a good man’s character, and afterwards in his life. So we have the grim thing lighted up, as it were, at the two ends. Suffering comes with the mission of trying what stuff a man is made of, and it leads to closer knowledge of God, which is blessed; to lowlier self-estimation, which is also blessed; and to renewed outward blessings, which hide the old scars and gladden the tortured heart.

1908 · Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: Job 42.1-10

To us, living in the blaze of light which Jesus Christ has let into the darkness of the future, the ‘end of the Lord’ is that heaven should crown the sorrows of His children on earth. We can speak of light, transitory affliction working out an eternal weight of glory. The book of Job is expressing substantially the same expectation, when it paints the calm after the storm and the restoration in double portion of vanished blessings.