In the land of Uz there lived a man of astonishing blessing and impeccable character. His name was Job. He was wealthy beyond measure – tens of thousands of livestock, a large and cherished family, and a reputation for uprightness before the Lord. He feared God, turned from evil, and honoured both the outward and the inward life.
Yet this tale is unlike any other in the Scriptures, for it asks a question we all face in the silent hours: If God is infinitely good, why do innocent people suffer?
And suffering came to him. His oxen and donkeys were stolen. Fire from heaven consumed his sheep and the servants. Raiders carried off his camels. A mighty wind collapsed the house where his children feasted and they perished. Finally his own body was laid low by painful sores, as he sat among the ashes, scraping his skin with a broken shard.
You and I know what ashes feel like: the place of shame, regret, confusion, and loss. We know what it is to ask: Why me? Why now? Job embodied the question.
But before all that ruin, a scene opens upon a heavenly council. “The sons of God” present themselves before the Lord. Among them stands “ha-Satan” (הַשָּׂטָן, ha-śāṭān)—literally “the adversary,” or “the accuser,” rather than simply the proper name “Satan” as often rendered in English. The Lord asks: “Have you considered my servant Job? There is none like him on the earth, blameless and upright.”
And the adversary replies, essentially:
“Fear God for nothing? Have you not put a hedge around him and all that he has? Stretch out your hand, touch all that he has – he will surely curse you to your face.”
In other words: What if his faith is only because his life is easy? What if suffering breaks him? The Lord grants permission, with limits, and Job’s world falls apart.
But amidst all this, Job utters one of the most profound lines of faith:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
There is no naïveté here. No sugar-coating. Some might call it despair, but it bears the stamp of hope: even in the darkest hour, God’s name is to be blessed.
Most of us recoil at the three “friends” of Job. Their words drip with the theology of retributive justice: you suffer because you sinned, you lost meaning because you did something wrong. Their metaphors; lions whose teeth are broken, reeds that flourish without water, sound lofty, but in context they sting deeply. Job, who had done all the outward right, now faces the inward abyss. He says to them (and to us): “Should we accept good from God, and not adversity?”
Finally, God Himself speaks, not with an answer to the suffering, but with a challenge. He points to the mysteries of creation, the Leviathan and Behemoth, the thundered seas, the morning stars. The point is not a tidy explanation, but that the One who made all things governs all things and our finite minds cannot yet grasp the fullness of His wisdom.
So what is God’s answer?
Many read the ending of Job and think God means simply: “It’s okay, you suffered, now you’re back to blessing, so everything’s fine.” But that misses something. The answer is not why suffering happens in every instance, but that God remains sovereign, mysteriously present, and worthy of trust even when we cannot trace the thread of our pain.
Job does not receive an explanation for child-cancer, for mass starvation, for the lonely ache in a heart. He receives the reminder that the One who upholds the cosmos also cares for the one who cries. The suffering is real. The injustice is felt. But the world is not random. The Maker has not abandoned the made.
A note on the word “Satan” (ha-Satan)
– The Hebrew word שָׂטָן (sāṭān) means “adversary,” “accuser,” or “opponent.”
– In the Old Testament the form הַשָּׂטָן (ha-śāṭān) literally means the adversary rather than necessarily a personal name.
– In the Book of Job the adversary appears in the heavenly assembly, under divine permission, which suggests a different function than the fully developed “devil” figure of later Christian theology.
– Scholars remain divided: some argue the adversary in Job is simply a member of the divine council whose role is to test or accuse humans before God; others see foreshadowing of the later Satan-figure.
In short: while later Christian tradition may identify this being with the devil, the Hebrew text presents a subtler figure; one permitted by God to test, accuse, uproot, yet still under divine sovereignty.
A reflection for today
If you’re reading this while the night is deep, the question of why may loom large. The Book of Job does not promise simple answers to every instance of suffering. It invites you into a posture:
Bless the name of God when the blessings flow. Bless the name of God when the ashes gather. Trust that the Maker of the stars also counts each tear. Know that your pain is not meaningless, though its full purpose may remain hidden.
As C. S. Lewis once wrote in The Problem of Pain:
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is I.”
And perhaps that is the greatest comfort: even when we do not understand the why, we can still know the Who.