Job 1:6

Context

After introducing Job, a righteous man of the land of Uz (verses 1–5), Job 1 shifts the scene from earth to heaven in verse 6: "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them" (Job 1:6, KJV). The verse is not spoken by a character but is the narrator's description. It relates that heavenly beings, "the sons of God," assembled before the LORD and that "Satan" came among them as well. In the following verses (7–12), Satan questions whether Job's piety is motivated by the expectation of reward. The LORD permits the testing but sets a limit: Job himself is not to be touched. The same scene recurs in nearly identical wording in Job 2:1, and it provides the frame that opens the story of suffering running through the entire Book of Job.

Interpretation

• Traditional Christian reading: The Satan who appears here is identified with the devil of the New Testament. The Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) likewise renders Satan in this verse as "the devil" (diabolos) and the sons of God as "the angels of God." On this reading, the scene displays God's sovereignty and providence: even Satan must appear before God and can act only within the bounds he is permitted.
• Old Testament scholarship: The Hebrew text reads ha-satan, with the definite article. Many scholars therefore hold that the term designates an office—"the accuser" or "the adversary"—rather than a proper name. This view reads verse 6 as a divine council scene, in which God takes counsel with heavenly beings, and compares it with Micaiah's vision in 1 Kings 22 and the scene of the accuser in Zechariah 3.
• Jewish tradition: Rabbinic literature is known to preserve interpretations that identify Satan with the evil inclination and with the angel of death.

Debates and Issues

• The sons of God: Read together with Job 38:7, the phrase is widely understood to refer to angels, and there is little disagreement on this point. The phrase is nevertheless drawn into the debate over Genesis 6:2, where the same expression appears (the angel view, the Sethite view, and others).
• Satan's status: Some interpreters connect this verse with the scene in Revelation 12 in which "the accuser of our brethren is cast down" (Revelation 12:10, KJV) and hold that Satan's position changed after Christ. Others regard the heavenly scene in Job as a literary frame and do not press questions of chronology.
• Theodicy: Because God permits the testing, this scene is often treated as a starting point for discussions of theodicy—the inquiry into why evil and suffering exist in a world governed by a good God.
• Translation: The spelling "사단" (Sadan) in the Korean Revised Version was changed to "사탄" (Satan) in the New Korean Revised Version and the New Korean Standard Version.

In the Korean Church

Job 1:6–12 is frequently cited as a unit in sermons that comfort believers enduring suffering and in sermons on spiritual warfare. The passage is used to support the teaching that even Satan can do nothing without God's permission.

Related Passages

• Job 2:1
• Job 38:7
• 1 Kings 22:19-22
• Zechariah 3:1-2
• Revelation 12:9