Job 2:10

Context

The verse belongs to the prose prologue, the narrative introduction, in chapters 1–2 of the Book of Job. Job first loses his possessions and his children. He then undergoes a second trial in which he is struck with sore boils over his whole body. As he sits among the ashes scraping himself with a potsherd, his wife says, "curse God, and die" (Job 2:9), and Job replies with the words of this verse. The narrator concludes, "In all this did not Job sin with his lips." The story soon moves to the arrival of his three friends (2:11–13), and from chapter 3 onward Job laments, cursing the day of his birth.

Interpretation

• As a confession of God's sovereignty: Many Protestant commentaries take these words as a confession that both good and evil are received from the hand of God. They read the verse as a counterpart to 1:21, "the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away." The Reformed tradition frequently cites this verse as an illustration of the doctrine of providence. Other interpreters emphasize the prologue's framework, in which Satan is the one who actually brings the calamities while God permits them (1:12; 2:6).
• On "one of the foolish women": The Hebrew word rendered "foolish" here refers less to a lack of intelligence than to a moral and religious folly that disregards God. Some ancient and medieval interpreters reportedly regarded Job's wife as Satan's accomplice. Many recent readings instead note that she too suffers, having lost her children. Some interpreters point out that Job does not flatly call his wife foolish but says that she speaks "as one of the foolish women speaketh."
• On "with his lips": The phrase "with his lips" appears here, although it is absent from the similar assessment in 1:22. The Jewish Talmudic tradition reportedly contains an interpretation that, on this basis, holds that Job did not sin with his lips but wavered in his heart. Many Christian interpreters, by contrast, take "lips" as representing his speech and conduct as a whole and read the phrase as emphasizing Job's integrity.

Debates and Issues

• Manuscripts and translation: The Greek Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, greatly expands the words of Job's wife in the immediately preceding verse (2:9), describing her suffering in detail. The Hebrew word ra, rendered "evil" in the KJV, can also be translated "calamity" or "trouble." For this reason the verse is also connected to the theological question of God's relationship to evil.
• Scope of application: Together with 1:21, this verse is frequently quoted in sermons on faith amid suffering. Critics of prosperity theology cite it as evidence that faith does not guarantee blessing alone. Others observe, however, that using the verse merely as an admonition to sufferers not to complain overlooks Job's laments from chapter 3 onward. It also overlooks God's assessment in 42:7 that Job had spoken rightly.

Related Passages

• Job 1:20–22
• Job 42:7–10
• Job 13:15
• Lamentations 3:38
• James 5:11