Job Chapter 1

"A man in the land of Uz" — meaning, in the land of Aram, as it is written "Uz the firstborn" (Bereishit 22), who was of the children of Nachor [who was from Aram].

"The man was..." — Even though it is written in the future tense, this is the way of the Hebrew language and the way it is translated, and in the present this man is great out of the men of the east, for Aram is in the east of the world, as it said...[unfinished]

From the portrait of the man Job with which the story opens, it is clear that no rational explanation can be given for his afflictions; no interpretation by which their occurrence was a normal event. For when poverty and suffering befall a person, it is normally for one of six reasons:

1. By reason of the nature of his body and its constitution. These causes can be divided into two sub-groups: a. Natural causes: If a person is a glutton, he weakens his body and wastes his money as a result of his bad traits. But Job was both sincere and upright. The term 'upright' implies that he was virtuous in both thought and action, for such was his nature. But even an upright person may falter such as when he sees that as a consequence of his virtue he may be harmed or may have to forgo some benefit or other. However, a sincere person is one who, by definition, performs his deeds with sincerity, i.e., without regard for his own advantage, and who always stands as firm as a rock, never faltering. b. Providential causes: Even though someone is by nature a sincere and upright person, he may incur suffering and poverty if he is not also God-fearing, keeping His statutes, commandments and laws (Exodus 16:28); or if he does not vigilantly eschew the evils proscribed by God, even though under the legal ordinances dictated by civilized ethics they may not be considered as such. However, we are told, in advance, that Job was both God-fearing and one who shunned wrongdoing.

2. A person may waste away if he is childless, having neither family nor home: without help or support; strangers swallowing him up (Hosea 8:7); and those looking to inherit him ruining him. But —

Job had seven sons and three daughters ; his children were like olive saplings around his table (Psalms 128:3), a shield and a fence (Jeremiah 46:3; Ezekiel 39:9; Psalms 35:2).

3. Impoverished persons may crumble: poverty is the undoing of the feeble (Proverbs 10:15) and a poor man's brothers all spurn him (Proverbs 19:7). But — [Job owned seven thousand sheep... ]

4. If a man is humiliated and disgraced in the eyes of the public he may break down; crushed in the gate, with none to save him (Job 5:4). But Job was a famous and respected man, the greatest man in all the East.

5. A man can be destroyed by family dissension, as when brothers bear malice towards one another and fabricate hatred (Proverbs 12:20) in his house. This is what the enmity between Joseph and his brothers did to the patriarch Jacob. But Job's family lived in harmony and affection: [ His sons held regular feasts etc.]

6. Lest it be said that Job was punished for the sins of any of his household or because he did not censure them, we are told how punctiliously he supervised them, and sanctified and purified them from any sin: [ He would rise early in the morning and offer burnt-offerings, one for each of them, for Job said: 'Perhaps my sons sinned'...]

Having eliminated or dismissed all the normal explanations that might possibly be offered for Job's afflictions, the Prologue now goes on to relate the real reason why these great afflictions befell him.

Maimonides has explained that all that is bad, whether it be personal or general, is associated with 'matter'. All objects or bodies that exist and decay, are only subject to this decay by reason of their matter; for as regards their form, or the essence of their form, they are indestructible. The essential nature of matter is its property of always being able to assume a new form. And so form can only be destroyed coincidentally, i.e., on account of its intimate association with matter, such as when a physical object assumes a new form. Maimonides continues: It is therefore clear that all corruption, destruction or defect comes from matter. Take, for example, man; his deformities and unnatural shape of limbs; all weakness, interruption, or disorder of his actions, whether innate or not, originate in the transient matter, not in the form. All other living beings likewise die or become ill through the matter of the body and not through its form. Man's shortcomings and sins are all due to the matter of the body and not to its form; while all his merits are exclusively due to his form. Thus the knowledge of God, the formation of ideas, the mastery of desire and passion, the distinction between that which is to be chosen and that which is to be rejected, all these man owes to his form; but eating, drinking, sexual intercourse, excessive lust, passion, and all vices, have their origin in the matter of his body. Accordingly, we are told how the 'sons of God', who are the forces found throughout creation, His sons and His handiwork, were in attendance before the Lord. All of them, since He is the Lord who sustains and who is the source of all existence; for maintaining existence is continual creation. They are joined by Satan, who is the force of extinction and the source of evil, decay, sin and everything else that obliterates and damages. As Maimonides explained: It does not say: 'And the Sons of God and Satan came to present themselves before the Lord'; for this sentence would have implied that the existence of both was of the same kind and rank...it only states that he joined them. Satan does not attend God of necessity and a priori, for he has no role in existence, only in extinction and decay. He only joins them because he is needed by the sublunar 'Sons of God', viz., the material forces; for the existence of a material object requires a prior extinction that changed form.. In the sublunar world, an object must first undergo some degree of extinction or destruction before it can assume a new form. Change, therefore, cannot occur in the sublunar world without Satan, the agent of extinction and destruction. On the other hand, he has no role in the immutable celestial world. Behold, we have a tradition that each of the natural forces of creation is governed by a superior agency that is also its source. These are the 'sons of God' who were in attendance before the Lord; angels that are controlled by and receive their power from God and who are in turn appointed over each of the forces of existence. As the Talmudic Sages said: There is no plant that does not have an angel appointed over it telling it to grow.. The Midrashic source actually speaks of 'a destiny in the firmament that acts upon the plant' rather than 'an angel that is appointed over it.' This notion appears in the Zohar (II,171a) too: Acting as guardians over this world are all the stars of the firmaments, with each individual object of the world having a specially designated star to care for it. The herbs and the trees, the grass and the wild plants, to bloom and increase must have the power of the stars that stand over them and look directly at them, each in its particular mode. Likewise, an ethereal agent has also been appointed over the force of extinction and destruction: Satan, the adversary, the killer and the destroyer. As the Talmudic Sages said: He is Satan, he is the evil inclination, he is the Angel of Death (Baba Batra 16a), He is the accuser, the one permitted to corrupt and destroy.

And so when God asks Satan from where he has come, he replies that he has been roving the earth, traveling its length and breadth. For Satan's role as the agent of extinction restricts him to the sublunar world of 'matter'.

When, in His wisdom, God united 'form' and 'matter' in man, He endowed the 'form' with power and dominion over the 'matter' so that it can suppress the latter's appetites, satisfying them only to the extent that morality and ethics allow. Consequently, a godly person who subjugates his 'matter' and conquers his cravings, and whose soul has absolute rule over all his instincts, will be beyond the rule of the force of extinction. Such a perfect man would be protected by God's Providence from any physical harm. This is the background to the dialogue between God and Satan. God presents Job as being such a paragon, beyond Satan's reach.

Satan scorns this and asserts that Job is in fact motivated only by material self-interest. From philosophical considerations it is clear that worship of God that is motivated by hope of reward or fear of punishment is not a spiritual but a material act. The same can be said of foregoing bodily pleasures. The self-denial of a person who fasts in order to be rewarded is not a product of his 'form' but of his love of 'matter'. Such a person afflicts himself out of love for his body, in the expectation of gain and in order to acquire the means to satisfy his desires.. Again, at the close of the Ethics, he draws an ironic picture of the pious coming before God at the Judgment, and looking to be endowed with incalculable blessings in recompense for the grievous burden of their piety (R.H.M.Elwes, p.XXX). Satan contends that Job's fear of God and his vigilance are not pure-minded. On the contrary, they are based on his expectation of physical reward and his fear of physical injury. And so Satan asks: Does Job fear God for nothing? Do You not protect him, his household and all that is around him? You have blessed everything he does and his possessions have spread far and wide.

...

Satan suggests putting Job to a test to determine just what his true motives are.

If he is really sincere, then even were he denied all his Providential blessings, he would still continue in his righteous ways. If, on the other hand, his righteousness was in fact only instrumental, motivated by expectation of reward or avoidance of injury, then, were the blessings removed, not only would he stop acting righteously, there being no good reason to do so any longer, but he would also curse God. For having previously believed his blessings to be deserved, i.e., that he had merited his wealth and possessions by virtue of his righteous ways, he would now blame their removal on the capriciousness of Governance, declaring that God is not a just judge This would clearly prove that his worship had not been out of love. For had it been so, he would not now complain but would balance his good times against the bad. The stone God created, so heavy even He cannot lift it, is man.

To summarize — It is clear that Job's suffering had nothing to do with any sin or punishment; he was guiltless. As God Himself had testified:...there is no-one like him on earth; such a sincere and upright man; God-fearing; one who shuns wrongdoing. It was in fact a trial designed to determine the truth about his piety; to see whether he would remain righteous even in poverty. Neither Job nor his three friends were aware of this until it was revealed to them by Elihu. God agrees to the test. All of Job's possessions are handed over to Satan; only Job himself was to remain untouched. As Maimonides explains (Guide for the Perplexed, Part 3, Chapter 22) : There are people who though unshaken by the loss of their money, would be horrified by the death of their children, driven to death worrying about it; there are others who would not be broken even by the loss of their children, but who are unable to face personal physical pain.

Maimonides has also categorized the types of harm that can befall man — The evils that befall man are of three kinds:

The first kind of evil is that which befalls a man because he is subject to genesis and destruction or because he possesses a body...in consequence of changes in the elements e.g. through bad air or thunderstorms or land-slips.

The second class of evils comprises such evils as people cause to one another e.g. when some of them use their strength against others.

The third class comprises those which a person causes to himself by his own action...diseases and afflictions upon body and soul alike. The first two types of harm are now inflicted on Job. He loses all his possessions: his oxen and asses and herdsmen, his sheep and shepherds, his camels and their drivers, and finally his children. All in one calamitous day, disaster following disaster, each worse than the one before. The loss of the oxen, asses and camels, together with their minders, was caused by rustlers and bandits - evils of the second class; the sheep and shepherds and his children were lost as a result of elemental disasters - lightning and whirlwind - which are evils of the first class.

But Job stands the test — He neither denies that God governs the world, nor does he criticize this Governance.

His possessions were not his own outright property; he had not been born with them. They were a gift or a loan from God, who had created them. They had been entrusted to him and had now been taken back. And taking them back was not an evil thing but was just a denial of bountiful good. God must have a good reason for doing this.