Satan’s Challenge of God

The following extract is taken from Robert Sutherland’s new book “Putting God on Trial: The Biblical Book of Job” (Trafford, Victoria, 2004) It is reproduced with his permission and he retains the copyright. Mr.Sutherland is a Christian Canadian criminal defense lawyer instrumental in changing the Canadian law on aggravated assault and solicitor-client privilege. He is a Senior Fellow at the Mortimer J. Adler Centre for the Study of the Great Ideas. And he is a member of St.Stephen’s Anglican, Thunder Bay. The book has received high praise from Job scholars: David Clines, Norman Habel and Gerald Janzen. Several chapters and order information are online at http://www.bookofjob.org

“Satan

Into this world comes a tempter. His name is “Satan”. (Job 1:6) This proper name “Satan” is a modification of the common Hebrew noun “satan”, which means “the accuser”, “the slanderer”. [1] His name is his title, and that title aptly describes his character. He is a liar, though the extent of his lies remains for other books of The Bible to develop. In any event, this is not the portrait of a faithful servant. As a member of the heavenly host and not yet an outside challenger, he seems to have unlimited access to God and the divine council. Having reviewed the lives of men and women “from going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it” (Job 1:7), Satan does not hesitate to question the justice of God when asked. For many scholars, the phrase “going to and fro” describes a member of the secret police of the ancient world. [2] Such persons were men who did not hesitate to wrongly accuse and wrongly condemn the innocent to death. This phrase darkens the portrait of a faithless servant. And as a “slanderer”, Satan is not a just and impartial prosecutor of God’s justice. He presents a profoundly different verdict on the life of Job and, by implication, the lives of all men and women. It is his charge that brings silence to the heavenly court.

“Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” (Job 1:9-11)

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All await God’s answer to this slander.

The accusation was devilish in both origin and design. It raises three issues for consideration: one explicit and two implicit.

First, Satan’s judgment brings into question God’s judgment on Job. And it does so explicitly. God’s judgment on Job is a judgment on his intentions. Job intends the good. Satan’s judgment on Job is a judgment on his motives. Job intends the good for reasons of selfishness. He does not fear God for nothing. He serves God for what he can get from him: the good life. In short, Job does not really serve God. Job manipulates God. This motive is the hidden sin. Job is a sinner. Satan’s challenge is a claim to the soul of Job.

Satan’s claim here has two important elements. Job is a sinner. And Job is such a sinner that, given the right circumstances, Job will “curse” God “to his very face”. Satan’s prediction here may suggest a self-imprecation: “I’ll be damned if he doesn’t curse you to your face!” [3] If so, then, within a canonical perspective, The Book of Job may be presenting an alternate version of the fall of Satan. In any event, blessing and cursing, righteousness and rebellion are for Satan two sides of the same coin. Because human beings serve God out of selfishness not selfless love, they are equally apt to curse God for the loss of their rewards as they are to bless him for the receipt of those rewards. It is vitally important to remember that the essence of Satan’s claim is that God has missed sin in Job’s character. If Job sins in any way in thought, word or deed short of actually cursing God, then Satan is right and God is wrong in his judgment on Job.

Secondly, Satan’s judgment brings into question God’s authority to judge. And it does so implicitly. If God is wrong in his judgment on Job, then God has erred. In this scene, God is called “LORD”. This is the NRSV translation of the Hebrew “JHWH” which may also be transliterated as “YHWH”. “Yahweh” is the personal name for God in the Old Testament. It is often left untranslated as YHWH. [4] This personal name is taken from God’s self-disclosure to Moses in the burnish bush.

“But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name? What shall I say to them? God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” God also said to Moses, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, “The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever and this my title for all generations.” (Exodus 3:13-15)

In the Exodus revelation, God’s name is given in three ways: “I AM WHO I AM”, “I AM”, and “LORD”. All three forms are forms of the Hebrew word “to be”. In Hebrew, “I AM WHO I AM” is “ehyeh asheh ehyeh”, first person singular, present tense. In Hebrew, “I AM” is “ehyeh”, a shortened form of the former, but again first person singular, present tense. In Hebrew, “LORD” is “jhwh”, third person singular, present tense. It functions as a personal name, Yahweh. This self-designation by God is the designation of a perfect being. Scholars have seen in the use of the first “I AM” a reference to essence and in the use of the second “I AM” a reference to existence. Through this name, God declares himself to be the Supreme Being, a perfect being, a being whose essence is existence. [5] By definition, such a being is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present and all-good. Certainly the ancient Jews understood the personal name of Yahweh to designate the perfect being God. If God is wrong in his judgment on Job, then God has ceased to be all-knowing. He has ceased to be a perfect being. The implication is clear. God should step down from his throne for he has lost the authority the one true God possess. Satan’s challenge is a claim to the throne of heaven.

Thirdly, Satan’s judgment brings into question God’s very purpose in the creation of man. And it does so implicitly. If Job is the very best man has to offer and God is wrong in his judgment on Job, then God is wrong in judgment on mankind. Man was created to freely love God. If men and women love God for what they can get from him, then their love for God is not genuine. It is manipulation not love. It is selfishness not self-giving. That selfishness may be short-term: the good life. Or that selfishness may be long term: an after-life, eternal life. If mankind cannot rise beyond selfishness, then a meaningful relationship with God is never possible in this life or the next. God is wrong in creating mankind in the first place. The entire human project is a failure and should be scrapped. Mankind itself should be destroyed. Satan’s challenge is a claim to destroy the earth and all in it.

This three-fold judgment was a stroke of evil genius. With a single accusation, Satan had put God on trial. And he had done before the High Court of Heaven. In any event, this three-fold challenge carries with it profound implications for understanding Job’s so-called excessive words and his Oath of Innocence. If Job sins in any way short of actually cursing God, then God has lost it all.

The 10 Days of Awe are the time in the Jewish liturgical year when human beings are called to repentance. They begin with the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah and they end 10 days later with the Day of Atonement. On Rosh Hashanah, God is said to pass judgment on mankind in heaven. Human beings are given 10 days to repent of their sins and amend their ways. On the Day of Atonement, God forgives those who repent. These two annual judgments foreshadow the one and Final Judgment to occur at the end of time. [6]

This subtle liturgical background arises out of the sequence of “one day” (Job 1:6), “one day” (Job 1:13), “one day” (Job 2:1) and “seven days and nights”. (Job 2:13) It may be the author’s intention that the Book of Job be read within that framework, though it is by no means explicit. Interestingly enough, within the Jewish liturgical year, the Book of Job is normally read on the Day of Atonement and that is the only time within the year that it is read. It certainly adds an ironic twist to the Days of Awe, a twist verging on demonic parody. It is not merely mankind that is on trial. God himself is on trial during these Days of Awe. On Rosh Hashanah, Satan passes a judgment on God in heaven calling into question God’s judgment of Job, God’s authority to judge and God’s very purpose in creation. God has 10 days to consider his ways and to repent of his error in creating mankind. When on the Day of Atonement God appears to Job and refuses to repent and amend his ways, Job will pass a judgment that foreshadows the one and Final Judgment to occur at the end of time. This is what makes the Days of Awe truly awesome. God is on trial for his plan in creation.

Trial by Ordeal

This challenge would be difficult for God to answer. If God were to reject it out of hand on the grounds of his own omniscience, then the slander would forever remain unanswered in the court of public opinion. If God were to pick up the gauntlet, then he would have to risk everything.

The moral issue turns on the connection between righteousness and reward. To settle the issue, God would have to create a world is which selfishness and selfless love develop separately. It would not be an Eden. It would be a Wasteland. It would have to be a world filled with gratuitous evil, a world filled with undeserved and unremitted suffering. It would have to be a world where evil would triumph over good more often than not. It would have to be a world where suffering would destroy character more often than build it. In such a world, the very existence of God would be doubt. There could never be certainty that God rewards those who love him, either with abundant life or with eternal life. In fact, the evidence would have to weigh against it. But in such a world, the issue between God and Satan could be joined. If God were to accept the challenge, then he would have to create a world very much like our own. Yet in doing so, God would have to open himself to being cursed by the very creatures he loved so much.

Such is God’s faith in mankind that God chooses to pick up the gauntlet. He elects trial by ordeal to establish the principle that righteousness can exist separately from reward. He chooses Job, humanity’s best representative, to be his champion. This trial of God by ordeal will be an ordeal for Job. God specifically authorizes Satan to inflict evil on Job. “Very well, all that he has in your power; only do not stretch out your hand against him!” (Job 1:12)

There are two restrictions on this trial of Job: one explicit and one implicit. The explicit restriction that God places on Satan is that Job’s life cannot be taken. The taking of Job’s life would prevent a final determination of the issue. Job must be tested to the fullest degree. The implicit restriction that Satan places on God is that God is prohibited from explicitly giving Job the reason for suffering. The concern is that any disclosure of a reason behind suffering might give Job a selfish motive to worship God and ultimately to manipulate him. If Job is truly the man God believes him to be, then Job will worship God regardless of what God might do for him. And so, Satan leaves the presence of God in heaven to create Hell on earth.”

Robert Sutherland

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[1] “Satan” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Volume 5, Edit. D.N. Freedman (Doubleday, New York, 1992) p. 985-986.

[2] Clines, D.J.A., Word Biblical Commentary: Job 1-20 (Word Books, Dallas, 1989) p. 22.

[3] Anderson, F.I. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Job (Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove, 1974)

p. 85.

Clines, D.J.A., Job in The International Bible Commentary (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1979) p. 26.

[4] In Hebrew, Yahweh is written as YHWH because Hebrew is written without vowels.

[5] Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles: Book One: God Trans. A.C.Pegis (University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, 1975) Chapter 22, pp. 118-121;

——–, Summa Theologica:Volume 1 Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Christian Classics, Westminister, 1948) Part 1, Question 2, Article 3, and Question 3, Article 4, pp. 13-14,17.

[6] Gates of the Seasons: A Guide to the Jewish Year, Edit. P.S.Knobel (Central Conference of American Rabbis, New York, 1983) p. 38-55.