Job 1:6-12 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.… In contrast to the Almighty we have the figure of the adversary, or Satan, depicted with sufficient clearness, notably coherent, representing a phase of being not imaginary but actual. He is not, as the Satan of later times came to be, the head of a kingdom peopled with evil spirits, a nether world separated from the abode of the heavenly angels by a broad, impassable gulf. He has no distinctive hideousness, nor is he painted as in any sense independent, although the evil bent of his nature is made plain, and he ventures to dispute the judgment of the Most High. This conception of the adversary need not be set in opposition to those which afterwards appear in Scripture as if truth must be entirely there or here. But we cannot help contrasting the Satan of the Book of Job with the grotesque, gigantic, awful, and despicable fallen angels of the world's poetry. Not that the mark of genius is wanting in these; but they reflect the powers of this world, and the accompaniments of malignant human despotism. The author of Job, on the contrary, moved little by earthly state or grandeur, whether good or evil, solely occupied with the Divine sovereignty, never dreams of one who could maintain the slightest shadow of authority in opposition to God. He cannot trifle with his idea of the Almighty in the way of representing a rival to Him; nor can he degrade a subject so serious as that of human faith and well-being by painting with any touch of levity a superhuman adversary of men...Evidently we have here a personification Of the doubting, misbelieving, misreading spirit which, in our day, we limit to men, and call pessimism. (Robert A. Watson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. |
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