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But stretch out your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face.”

Yahweh said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life.”

So Satan went out from the presence of Yahweh, and struck Job with painful sores from the sole of his foot to his head.

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But now stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones,(A) and he will surely curse you to your face.”(B)

The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, he is in your hands;(C) but you must spare his life.”(D)

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.(E)

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But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.

And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.

So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

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But extend your hand and strike his bone and his flesh,[a] and he will no doubt[b] curse you to your face!”

So the Lord said to Satan, “All right,[c] he is[d] in your power;[e] only preserve[f] his life.”

Job’s Integrity in Suffering

So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and he afflicted[g] Job with a malignant ulcer[h] from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.[i]

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Footnotes

  1. Job 2:5 sn The “bones and flesh” are idiomatic for the whole person, his physical and his psychical/spiritual being (see further H. W. Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament, 26-28).
  2. Job 2:5 sn This is the same oath formula found in 1:11; see the note there.
  3. Job 2:6 tn The particle הִנּוֹ (hinno) is literally, “here he is!” God presents Job to Satan, with the restriction on preserving Job’s life.
  4. Job 2:6 tn The LXX has “I deliver him up to you.”
  5. Job 2:6 tn Heb “hand.”
  6. Job 2:6 sn The irony of the passage comes through with this choice of words. The verb שָׁמַר (shamar) means “to keep; to guard; to preserve.” The exceptive clause casts Satan in the role of a savior—he cannot destroy this life but must protect it.
  7. Job 2:7 tn The verb is נָכָה (nakhah, “struck, smote”); it can be rendered in this context as “afflicted.”
  8. Job 2:7 sn The general consensus is that Job was afflicted with a leprosy known as elephantiasis, named because the rough skin and the swollen limbs are animal-like. The Hebrew word שְׁחִין (shekhin, “boil”) can indicate an ulcer as well. Leprosy begins with such, but so do other diseases. Leprosy normally begins in the limbs and spreads, but Job was afflicted everywhere at once. It may be some other disease also characterized by such a malignant ulcer. D. J. A. Clines has a thorough bibliography on all the possible diseases linked to this description (Job [WBC], 48). See also HALOT 1460 s.v. שְׁחִין.
  9. Job 2:7 tn Heb “crown.”