Job 1:9

Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) Doth Job fear God for nought?—Manifesting the worst kind of scepticism, a disbelief in human goodness. Satan knows that the motive of an action is its only value, and by incrimination calumniates the motives of Job. The object of the book is thus introduced, which is to exhibit the integrity of human conduct under the worst possible trial, and to show man a victor over Satan.

Benson Commentary

Job 1:9. Doth Job serve God for naught? — That is, sincerely and freely, and out of pure love and respect to thee? No: it is policy, not piety, that makes him good: he doth not serve thee, but serves himself of thee; and is a mere mercenary creature, serving thee for his own ends.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:6-12 Job's afflictions began from the malice of Satan, by the Lord's permission, for wise and holy purposes. There is an evil spirit, the enemy of God, and of all righteousness, who is continually seeking to distress, to lead astray, and, if possible, to destroy those who love God. How far his influence may extend, we cannot say; but probably much unsteadiness and unhappiness in Christians may be ascribed to him. While we are on this earth we are within his reach. Hence it concerns us to be sober and vigilant, 1Pe 5:8. See how Satan censures Job. This is the common way of slanderers, to suggest that which they have no reason to think is true. But as there is nothing we should dread more than really being hypocrites, so there is nothing we need dread less than being called and counted so without cause. It is not wrong to look at the eternal recompence in our obedience; but it is wrong to aim at worldly advantages in our religion. God's people are taken under his special protection; they, and all that belong to them. The blessing of the Lord makes rich; Satan himself owns it. God suffered Job to be tried, as he suffered Peter to be sifted. It is our comfort that God has the devil in a chain, Re 20:1. He has no power to lead men to sin, but what they give him themselves; nor any power to afflict men, but what is given him from above. All this is here described to us after the manner of men. The Scripture speaks thus to teach us that God directs the affairs of the world.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Doth Job fear God for nought? - "Is his religion disinterested? Would not anyone be willing to worship God in such circumstances?" The idea is that there was nothing genuine about his piety; that religion could not be tried in prosperity; that Job had an abundant compensation for serving God, and that if the favors conferred on him were taken away, he would be like the rest of mankind. Much of the apparent virtue and religion of the world is the result of circumstances, and the question here proposed "may," it is to be feared, be asked with great propriety of many professors of religion who are rich; it "should" be asked by every professed friend of the Most High, whether his religion is not selfish and mercenary. Is it because God has blessed us with great earthly advantages? Is it the result of mere gratitude? Is it because he has preserved us in peril, or restored us from sickness? Or is it merely because we hope for heaven, and serve God because we trust he will reward us in a future world? All this may be the result of mere selfishness; and of all such persons it may be appropriately asked, "Do they fear God for nought?" True religion is not mere gratitude, nor is it the result of circumstances. It is the love of religion for its own sake - not for reward; it is because the service of God is right in itself, and not merely because heaven is full of glory; it is because God is worthy of our affections and confidence, and not merely because he will bless us - and this religion will live through all external changes, and survive the destruction of the world. It will flourish in poverty as well as when surrounded by affluence; on a bed of pain as well as in vigorous health; when we are calumniated and despised for our attachment to it, as well as when the incense of flattery is burned around us, and the silvery tones of praise fall on our ear; in the cottage as well as the palace; on the pallet of straw as well as on the bed of down.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. fear God for naught—It is a mark of the children of Satan to sneer and not give credit to any for disinterested piety. Not so much God's gifts, as God Himself is "the reward" of His people (Ge 15:1).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

i.e. Sincerely and freely, and out of pure love and respect to thee? No. It is policy, not piety, that makes him good; he doth not serve thee, but serveth himself of thee, and is a mere mercenary, serving thee for his own ends.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, doth Job fear God for nought. Satan does not deny any part of Job's character, nor directly charge him with anyone sin; which shows what a holy man Job was, how exact in his life and conversation, that the devil could not allege any one thing against him; nor does he deny that he feared the Lord; nay, he owns it, only suggests there was a private reason for it; and this he dares not affirm, only puts it by way of question, giving an innuendo, which is a wretched way of slander many of his children have learnt from him: he insinuates that Job's fear of God, and serving him, was not "for nought", or "freely" (s), it was not out of love to him, or with any regard to his will, or his honour and glory, but from selfish principles, with mercenary views, and for worldly ends and purposes: indeed no man fears and serves the Lord for nought and in vain, he is well paid for it; and godliness has a great gain along with it, the Lord bestows everything, both in a temporal and spiritual way, on them that fear him; so that eventually, and in the issue, they are great gainers by it; and they may lawfully look to these things, in order to encourage them in the service and worship of God, even as Moses had respect to the recompence of reward; when they do not make these, but the will and glory of God, the sole and chief cause and end thereof: but the intimation of Satan is, that Job's fear was merely outward and hypocritical, nor cordial, hearty, and disinterested, but was entirely for his own sake, and for what he got by it; and this he said as if he knew better than God himself, the searcher of hearts, who had before given such an honourable character of him. Sephorno observes, that he supposes that his fear was not a fear of the greatness of God, a reverence of his divine Majesty, but a fear of punishment; or what we call a servile fear, and not a filial one.

(s) "gratis", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius Piscator, Schmidt, Schultens.

Geneva Study Bible

Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for {p} nought?

(p) He fears you not for your own sake, but for the blessing that he received from you.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. for nought] Satan does not dispute Job’s piety; only, the devotion of the rich landowner to the Bountiful Giver of all good is not ill to understand! A different estimate of what true religion is and of the things that are difficulties in the way of it was formed by Another, who said: “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” A subtle turn is given to the words of Satan by Godet in his Essay on Job, who thinks that while they are openly a slur upon man, they are covertly a sarcasm on the Most High Himself, implying that no one truly loves Him, He is served only for the benefits He confers. The Essayist may do no injustice to Satan, but he does to the Old Testament conception of him. The Satan of this Book may shew the beginnings of a personal malevolence against man, but he is still rigidly subordinated to heaven, and in all he does subserves its interests. His function is as the minister of God to try the sincerity of man; hence when his work of trial is over he is no more found, and no place is given him among the dramatis persona of the poem.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? Satan insinuates that Job's motive is purely selfish. He serves God, not for love of God, or for love of goodness, but for what he gets by it. Satan is too shrewd to endeavour, as Job's friends do later, to pick holes in Job's conduct. No; that is exemplary. But the true character of acts is determined by the motive. What is Job's motive? Does he not serve God to gain his protection and blessing? Similarly, in modern times, ungodly men argue that religious and devout persons are religious and devout with a view to their own interest, because they expect to gain by it, either in this world, or in the next, or in both. This is a form of calumny which it is impossible to escape. And bad men, who are conscious to themselves of never acting except from a selfish motive, may well imagine the same of others. It is rarely that such an insinuation can be disproved. In the present instance God vindicates his servant, and covers the adversary with shame, as the other adversaries and calumniators of righteousness will be covered at the last day. Job 1:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

9-11 Then Satan answered Jehovah, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast Thou not made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Hast Thou not blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land? But put forth Thine hand now, and touch all that he hath: truly he will renounce Thee to Thy face.

Satan is, according to the Revelation 12:10, the κατήγωρ who accuses the servants of God day and night before God. It is a fact respecting the invisible world, though expressed in the language and imagery of this world. So long as he is not finally vanquished and condemned, he has access to God, and thinks to justify himself by denying the truth of the existence and the possibility of the continuance of all piety. God permits it; for since everything happening to the creature is placed under the law of free development, evil in the world of spirits is also free to maintain and expand itself, until a spiritual power comes forward against it, by which the hitherto wavering conflict between the principles of good and evil is decided. This is the truth contained in the poetic description of the heavenly scene, sadly mistaken by Umbreit in his Essay on Sin, 1853, in which he explains Satan, according to Psalm 109:6, as a creation of our author's fancy. The paucity of the declarations respecting Satan in the Old Testament has misled him. And indeed the historical advance from the Old Testament to the New, though in itself well authorized, has in many ways of late induced to the levelling of the heights and depths of the New Testament. Formerly Umbreit was of the opinion, as many are still, that the idea of Satan is derived from Persia; but between Ahriman (Angramainyus) and Satan there is no striking resemblance;

(Note: Moreover, it is still questionable whether the form of the ancient doctrine of fire-worship among the Persians did not result from Jewish influences. Vid., Stuhr, Religionssysteme der herdn. Vlker des Orients, S. 373-75.)

whereas Diestel, in his Abh. ber Set-Typhon, Asasel und Satan, Stud. u. Krit., 1860, 2, cannot indeed recognise any connection between עזאזל and the Satan of the book of Job, but maintains a more complete harmony in all substantial marks between the latter and the Egyptian Typhon, and infers that "to Satan is therefore to be denied a purely Israelitish originality, the natural outgrowth of the Hebrew mind. It is indeed no special honour for Israel to be able to call him their own. He never has taken firm hold on the Hebrew consciousness." But how should it be no honour for Israel, the people to whom the revelation of redemption was made, and in whose history the plan of redemption was developed, to have traced the poisonous stream of evil up to the fountain of its first free beginning in the spiritual world, and to have more than superficially understood the history of the fall of mankind by sin, which points to a disguised superhuman power, opposed to the divine will? This perception undoubtedly only begins gradually to dawn in the Old Testament; but in the New Testament, the abyss of evil is fully disclosed, and Satan has so far a hold on the consciousness of Jesus, that He regards His life's vocation as a conflict with Satan. And the Protevangelium is deciphered in facts, when the promised seed of the woman crushed the serpent's head, but at the same time suffered the bruising of its own heel.

The view (e.g., Lutz in his Biblishce Dogmatik) that Satan as he is represented in the book of Job is not the later evil spirit, is to be rejected: he appears here only first, say Herder and Eichhorn, as impartial executor of judgment, and overseer of morality, commissioned by God. But he denies what God affirms, acknowledges no love towards God in the world which is not rooted in self-love, and is determined to destroy this love as a mere semblance. Where piety is dulled, he rejoices in its obscurity; where it is not, he dims its lustre by reflecting his own egotistical nature therein. Thus it is in Zechariah 3:1-10, and so here. Genuine love loves God חנּם (adverb from חן, like gratis from gratia): it loves Him for His own sake; it is a relation of person to person, without any actual stipulations and claim. But Job does not thus fear God; ירא is here praet., whereas in Job 1:1 and Job 1:8 it is the adjective. God has indeed hitherto screened him from all evil; שׂכתּ from שׂוּך, sepire, and בּעד (בּעד) composed of בּ and עד, in the primary signification circum, since עד expresses that the one joins itself to the other, and בּ that it covers it, or covers itself with it. By the addition of מסּביב, the idea of the triple בּעד is still strengthened. מעשׂה, lxx, Vulg., have translated by the plural, which is not false according to the thought; for ידים מעשׂה is, especially in Deuteronomy, a favourite collective expression for human enterprise. פּרץ, a word, with the Sanskrito-Sem. frangere, related to פּרק, signifying to break through the bounds, multiply and increase one's self unboundedly (Genesis 30:30, and freq.). The particle אוּלם, proper only to the oldest and classic period, and very commonly used in the first four books of the Pentateuch, and in our book, generally ואוּלם, is an emphatic "nevertheless;" Lat. (suited to this passage at least) verum enim vero. אם־לא is either, as frequently, a shortened formula of asseveration: May such and such happen to me if he do not, etc., equals forsooth he will (lxx ἦ μήν); or it is half a question: Attempt only this and this, whether he will not deny thee, equals annon, as Job 17:2; Job 22:20. The first perhaps suits the character of Satan better: he affirms that God is mistaken. בּרך signifies here also, valedicere: he will say farewell to thee, and indeed על־פּניך (as Isaiah 65:3), meeting thee arrogantly and shamelessly: it signifies, properly, upon thy countenance, i.e., say it to thee, to the very face, that he will have nothing more to do with thee (comp. on Job 2:5). In order now that the truth of His testimony to Job's piety, and this piety itself, may be tried, Jehovah surrenders all Job's possessions, all that is his, except himself, to Satan.