In the Book of Job?

Question

In Chapter 2 Verse 9-10. First Job's wife says, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!"
Job replies, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"
What does Job mean by this?

Answer 1

He is rebuking his wife because she IS being foolish and showing a lack of faith and trust in God. How quickly she has forgotten how richly God blessed her family!

Job is telling her that God is good and knows what we need. He is with us in good times and bad, whether we are poor or rich.

We should not abandon our Father during a trial of life. In fact, we should lean on Him even more.

Answer 2

Even when we consider the significant account of Job and his trials, we see that Job never attributes his tests to the adversary, Satan. Evidently, he was unaware at the time of the issue that hung on the outcome of his conduct. (Job 1:6-12) He did not realize that Satan had precipitated the crisis by challenging Job’s integrity before Jehovah. Thus, when Job’s wife reprimanded him with the words: “Are you yet holding fast your integrity? Curse God and die!” he simply answered: “Shall we accept merely what is good from the true God and not accept also what is bad?” Without knowing the true source of his trials, he apparently viewed them as coming from God and therefore something to be accepted. Had it been otherwise, it would not have been a true test of Job’s integrity.

What frame of mind might Job’s wife have been in when she told her husband to curse God and die?

Job’s wife had suffered the same losses as her husband. It must have pained her to see her once active husband brought low by a loathsome disease. She had lost her beloved children. She may have been so distraught because of all of this that she lost sight of what was truly important, their relationship with God.

Answer 3

Dear Rachel,

This passage really reflects Job's trust in God and Job's integrity. There are those who love God when things are good but blame God when things go bad.

Job could not understand everything that was going on, but He trusted and understood that God was good.

He is saying that we are so quick to accept blessing from God. But when trouble comes should we not accept it as well. It does not necessarily mean that God is the source of trouble- but He will allow difficulties and challenges to grow us with. To teach us how to rely upon Him.

This was Satan's initial charge to God- that Job only blessed God because everything was good.

Job trusted that God was good and in control even when he didn't understand all the trouble that had come into his life.

Hope that helps. Kindly,

Nickster

Answer 4

I am not entirely sure about this, but this is my impression: what Job is basically saying is what almost everyone on this Earth struggles with, praising God in the bad times and not even in the good times. So, his wife tells him to curse God and die. He asks his wife if they not even praise God even when good things are happening? So, he's point out to her that usually she says that they shoudln't trouble with God when good stuff happens to them. I have no idea if any of this makes sense. Hope this helped.

Answer 5

Job KNOWS that he is being tested by God and Satan in a game of, "you can do anything to him but kill him!" That's the offer God made Satan about Job, so Satan can kill Jobs family (and does!) his cattle and animals and servants, leaving only his friends alive to tell him to curse God, Job at this time has lost 10 children and his wife and is covered from bottom of the feet to top of the head with ulcerated, oozing sores.

Job stays true to God, God wins and Job is rewarded with two times as much as he ever had. Proving that even imperfect men can be true to God.

Answer 6

Job viewed (at least in that verse) the challenges he was facing as being from God and not God ignoring him.

Too often we only thank God for when things go right our 'our way' and lose focus on what really matters - His will.

In a similar way to a parent disciplining their child, God does the same for us at times. We may not like restrictions or consequences for our actions, but those events help us to learn and grow.

Answer 7

In the course of providence - the workings of God in the world - no single thing happens by chance. "Good" as well as "Evil" (as a means of punishment, testing, or reproof) is permitted by God, in his divine governing of this world. Amos 3:6: "... shall there be evil in the city and the Lord hath not done it?"
Job is merely admonishing his wife to show due respect, before complaining about the providence of God in his life.

Answer 8

Job is a surprisingly confused piece of work. Job is likely the first book of the Bible and it also describes in parts a deist style of God instead of a personal God but describes a personal humanoid style God right beside that.
God in parts of Job is described as that from which everything flows both good and bad, unlike the other descriptions of the Hebrew God who could be bargained and haggled with like a great sky fairy.

Answer 9

As expressed in the New Testament IT RAINS ON THE GOOD AND THE BAD. The bargain that was made between God and Satan about Job, Satan lost out on the bargain because Job did not faulterr in his belief in God even though his wife did faulter

Answer 10

Job is saying that he is thankful to God for all the good things in his life up until then, so it would be unfaithful to turn away from God when things are bad.