Adonai, “From wandering around the earth and walking back and forth through it.”
As in 1:7, the Targum adds that Satan’s movements were to mivdsak b’ovdai bnai nesha, to “examine the deeds of humans.”
2:3 Adonai said to Satan, “Have you paid attention to my servant Job? Nobody on earth is like him. Upright and honest, revering God and turning away from evil, he remains without blame, even though you have incited me against him to batter him for no reason.”
God shows Satan that Job didn’t react as Satan had expected. Rather than react with anger to what befell him, Job continued to lead a life of blessing.
2:4 Satan answered, “Skin for skin. For one’s own life, a person will give up everything he [or she] owns.”
Many families have their own insights that reflect the folk wisdom of this verse. The phrase “skin for skin” appears to be a proverb of some kind. To help understand it, the Targum translates the proverb as “limb for limb.”
Rashi thus understands the phrase: Were one to see a sword about to strike one’s head, one would raise one’s arm to protect oneself. How much the more, he adds, would one use one’s entire fortune to protect oneself.
2:5 Just stretch out your hand and touch his bone and flesh and he will surely curse you right to your face.
Satan remains dissatisfied and wants to continue his abuse of Job. What had taken place to this point was apparently insufficient. Satan assumes that eventually Job will reach his breaking point and curse God as a result. So now he argues that if Satan causes him physical pain, rather than the psychic pain of his losing his family, then Job would strike out against God.
Gersonides offers us philosophical insight on this verse. Satan thought that Job might curse God as a result of Job’s apparent misunderstanding of divine providence. Job thought that God did not afford that providence to lower beings. Had he conceptualized the matter correctly, he would never have been moved. Job’s confusion was due to the lack of proper philosophical investigation in the matter of perfection, so says Gersonides, which protects a person from what will turn out to be imaginary evils.
For Gersonides, what we read of the terrible things that happened to Job is only a parable: with God’s permission, Satan had attempted to harm Job’s body in every possible way. However, Satan was forbidden to harm Job’s soul. That soul could have ruled over Satan had it wished to do so. It was given over to Satan at one point because of Job’s imperfect reverence for God and Job’s loss of faith on being tested. This is the meaning of the statement “And touch his bone . . . [atzmo, which Gersonides takes to mean his essence, that is, his soul].”
2:6 Adonai then said, “Alright, he is in your hands. But spare his life.”
In this verse, God is again portrayed badly. God does not try to protect or defend Job. Instead, God allows Satan to continue to play with Job—asking only that his life not be taken. God seems to be wagering on Job’s virtue. As a result, God is willing to allow Job to suffer. And in this case, even if it is not apparent at other times, God seems to be able to intervene in order to prevent Job’s suffering from taking place. Job has become a pawn in a game of chess between Satan and God with no value at all.
Rashi surmises that God’s demand presents a problem for Satan. How can Satan afflict Job badly but not kill him? Rashi reminds us of the midrash (Yalkut Shimoni II: 893:2) in which the rabbis make the comparison of Satan to a person being told to smash a wine barrel filled with wine and still preserve the wine for drinking.
2:7 No sooner had Satan left God’s presence that he afflicted Job with painful blisters from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.
Satan couldn’t wait to do his dirty work on Job, especially now that Satan had God’s permission once again to do so. The author uses the same word—shecheen (blisters)—that the Torah uses to refer to one of the plagues afflicting the Egyptians. This is really to emphasize the severity of the affliction. However, the specific description of the ailment is not clear. They are some kind of boils or sores. Since it seems that the intent was to cause Job excruciating pain, we have translated ra (evil) to mean “painful.”
2:8 Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself and sat in the ashes.
Job’s discomfort is palpable. So Job grabs whatever he can in order to try to relieve himself of his pain. Perhaps the choice of a “potsherd,” something broken and discarded, is symbolic of Job’s condition. Sitting in ashes or dust is symbolic of his mourning.
2:9 His wife said to him, “Still without blame? Curse God and die!”
While the comments of Job’s wife are certainly not sympathetic, they are understandable. She is looking for something that might explain her predicament, as well. She has also grown impatient with Job for his refusal to confront or curse God. In Job 2:3, we translated machazeek b’tumato as “remains without blame,” instead of other possible translations. We chose this particular translation of odecha machazeek b’tumatatcha, “still without blame,” because the English words suggest something which, although not as explicit in the Hebrew, seems to stand behind Job’s wife’s bitter statement: “You don’t blame God? You should! Curse God for what God has done to you, even if it means that you will die!”
Since Job’s wife is not identified by name, the Targum attempts to identify her. It suggests that she is Dina, Leah’s daughter, who brazenly fell in love with Shechem, the son of Hamor (Genesis 34:1–3). Perhaps the implication is that it is not Job who is to blame. It is Job’s wife—and her actions—that are to blame. That would change the dynamic of the story considerably. As Gersonides notes, Job still holds on to his virtue even in response to his wife’s words.
2:10 Job answered her, “You are talking like one of the foolish women! Should we be willing to [only] receive the good from God and not accept the bad?” In all of this, Job did not sin with his lips.
As in all attempts to translate idiomatically, there are challenges implicit in our translation of the verse. The plural noun ha-n’valot (foolish women) has a moral dimension to it. Looking at the context, “foolish” could be an epithet that a spouse, even one as sorely tried as Job, might direct at his wife.
Our rendition of Job’s question to his wife seeks to take it from the abstract and make it real. Hence, we have added “willing” to our translation of nekabel “we shall receive, get,” and “things” to the translation of tov (good) and rah (bad).
2:11 When the three friends of Job—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuchite, and Zophar the Naamatite—heard about the calamity that had befallen him, each one left where he was, met together, and agreed to visit Job to console and comfort him.
The author presents these three friends of Job coming from a distance and after a period of time “to console and comfort him.” It is not clear how far away they are or how much time has elapsed. It is possible that the author intends to imply that both a physical and a metaphysical distance separate Job from his friends.
As a response to the implicit question as to what impelled Job’s friends to visit, especially at this particular time, the Targum tells us that they saw the trees in their orchards wither, the bread served at their meals became raw meat, and the wine served turned into blood. Because of their act of kindness, they were delivered from the place in Gehinnom that had been reserved for them.
Gersonides tells us that while Job’s three friends saw how upset he was, none of them were able to offer any words of consolation (as indicated in 2:13). Gersonides contends that had
