did god kill job's children just for demonstration?

Question

note i said "kill". not "god had them kill by the devil"

er... not "god had them killed"

bro. john, what part did i not read? care to expound on your opinion about it?

based on your answers, job's children are just like toys... it's all about job god and satan... job's children are just expendable chess peices.

barkleyvader: that reminds me of tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires. tons more.

ok, so how do we know whether it is an urban legend or a work of fiction?

Answer 1

God killed them, he killed lots of people, just not directly. If you don't believe me, look at the flood, Sodom, etc.
God did not kill his children directly, but if God is all-powerful he could have stopped it, but he chose not too. Call it a master plan.

Answer 2

The book of Job is not likely a detailed account in real-time of a poor man's sufferings. Rather it is a profound meditation on the nature of suffering.

Exegesists often speculate that there may have been a wealthy pastoral man who suffered, and that this historical person serves as the launching point for the exploration of suffering that is the Book of Job. (The reason he is thought to possibly have some historicity is a mention in the Book of Ezekiel.)

However, just as Plato's "The Republic" uses a discussion between Socrates and various friends as a platform from which to expound his own views, so too does the sacred writer use the representative dialogues in the Book of Job to explore the mystery of suffering.

Is it God's cruelty, or God's revenge? Is it Job's own deeds that led to this? And finally, is God mean-spirited when Job begs for release and does not receive it?

God's response in the text is a long essay meant to demonstrate the extent of God's inscrutability, and the futility of trying to reason away the question of "why bad things happen to good people." The text makes clear we're not going to get a good answer, we likely wouldn't understand the answer if provided, even if God were inclined to explain it to us, which he is not.

When Job accepts that it is the human vocation to be humble in the face of our suffering, and perhaps accept that we cannot and will not always understand it, God turns on Job's friends, telling them point blank that they were wrong to think Job suffered because they sinned.

Job in the end is restored to his prior state, but this is almost an afterthought. The work is essentially devoted to reminding us that suffering is a mystery, one we are not going to unravel.

Answer 3

Yeah, I did note that. And you still didn't get it right. God didn't hire the devil to be His hit man to take out Job's children either.

Other than that, I can't answer for God as to what His motivations were in even pointing out Job to the devil in the first place and removing the hedge about him - with limitations. To be totally fair, you'd have to ask Him.

Answer 4

Satan wanted to prove that Job's love was conditional. So God agreed to allow Satan to provoke Job to cursing God. However, even though Satan killed his kids, he didn't curse Him. If you want to insist that God is responsible for Satan's actions, then you're foolish and unreasonable. You can't make that statement bc it isn't true. If you don't like it, that's tough, you don't get to decide truth.

God allowed Satan to do that he wanted to try to get Job to curse him, but Job never did. God never told anyone to kill Job's family, He simply handed his family and all he had over to Satan, bc he wanted to test Job's faith. Satan then used the authority God gave him to test Job by killing his family and servants, and taking away his livestock.

Answer 5

Job is a dramatic story, and not a real life event.

It was written to introduce us to the concept of God allowing evil to spend itself doing whatever it will in order to destroy good, with God winning out in the end, vanquishing evil, and restoring all things, just as his Son would do (and did) at Calvary.

Answer 6

No. He killed them out of boredom. An all-knowing entity would have no need to test the faith of anyone.

Or, the even more rational explanation: The Bible is a work of fiction.

Answer 7

They died by a wind of the devil’s raising, who is the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2), but it was looked upon to be an immediate hand of God, and a token of his wrath.

4. His dearest and most valuable possessions were his ten children; and, to conclude the tragedy, news if brought him, at the same time, that they were killed and buried in the ruins of the house in which they were feasting, and all the servants that waited on them, except one that came express with the tidings of it, v. 18, 19. This was the greatest of Job’s losses, and which could not but go nearest him; and therefore the devil reserved it for the last, that, if the other provocations failed, this might make him curse God. Our children are pieces of ourselves; it is very hard to part with them, and touches a good man in as tender a part as any. But to part with them all at once, and for them to be all cut off in a moment, who had been so many years his cares and hopes, went to the quick indeed. (1.) They all died together, and not one of them was left alive. David, though a wise and good man, was very much discomposed by the death of one son. How hard then did it bear upon poor Job who lost them all, and, in one moment, was written childless! (2.) They died suddenly. Had they been taken away by some lingering disease, he would have had notice to expect their death, and prepare for the breach; but this came upon him without giving him any warning. (3.) They died when they were feasting and making merry. Had they died suddenly when they were praying, he might the better have borne it. He would have hoped that death had found them in a good frame if their blood had been mingled with their feast, where he himself used to be jealous of them that they had sinned, and cursed God in their hearts —to have that day come upon them unawares, like a thief in the night, when perhaps their heads were overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness—this could not but add much to his grief, considering what a tender concern he always had for his children’s souls, and that they were now out of the reach of the sacrifices he used to offer according to the number of them all. See how all things come alike to all. Job’s children were constantly prayed for by their father, and lived in love one with another, and yet came to this untimely end. (4.) They died by a wind of the devil’s raising, who is the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2), but it was looked upon to be an immediate hand of God, and a token of his wrath. So Bildad construed it (ch. 8:4): Thy children have sinned against him, and he has cast them away in their transgression. (5.) They were taken away when he had most need of them to comfort him under all his other losses. Such miserable comforters are all creatures. In God only we have a present help at all times.

Answer 8

Maybe God likes scaring people eh.

Answer 9

Read and study your Bible - God did not kill anyone.

Answer 10

God gives, and God takes away. Why he does either- isn't ours to say.