It seems God has turned against Job without just reason, refusing to explain his action, indeed refusing to speak to him at all, and instead keeps on hounding him to death. This is the antithesis of Eden; it is a kind of hell. This being so (or seeming to be so, for in the dark things are not what they seem), why should Job continue to serve God? It was fortitude indeed that Job did not renounce God. 

No suffering is easy to bear. The suddenness and successiveness with which blows can fall, coupled with an increase in their severity form one massive, insupportable burden. The account that we have of Job’s afflictions in the opening two chapters of the book include all these features. The seemingly ordinary expression “There was a day” (1:6, 13) introduces what was extraordinary in Job’s experience, and the echoing expression “Again there was a day” repeats the like but with an extra note of foreboding. There had never been a day like it before in Job’s life, and there would be others that were worse. The recollection of his previous days only served to increase his grief (29:2-30).

The loss of all his animals and almost all the servants—those who survived the calamities only being spared to bring him the terrible news—amount to total impoverishment. Then comes the news of his children’s deaths—and what are crops, animals and servants to children, those precious sons and daughters for whom he had prayed? By that report a far heavier blow falls on his already battered spirit. At least his body has been left unscathed, yet not for long. His health is now removed by a disease that will deprive him of all human society and solace, including even that of his wife, whose remark is perhaps “the unkindest cut of all” as she urges him to curse God so as to be cut off by him.

Yet Job “did not sin nor charge God with wrong” in all these reversals. Just as he had not sinned so as to deserve those calamities, so he does not sin just after they befall him. He maintains his faith in God, receiving “evil” from him in exactly the same spirit of thankful worship as he had received “good,” and he encourages his wife to do the same. Such endurance is costly and hard. Being human, he is grief-stricken (1:20).

Soon he has to cope with his three particularly close friends (19:21) over some length of time. They are kind, wise, and good. They meet voluntarily and travel to bring him comfort when they hear of his circumstances, and they speak to him about God. But their instinctive reaction when they see him and their protracted silence as they sit with him conspires to increase his already great bitterness. Soon they are at loggerheads with each other, and that augments his anguish still further.

Death had crossed his path in the case of his animals, servants, and beloved children. We have noted how he responded to that, but bereavement cannot be shaken off overnight. But in the week of silence and sickness since the friends arrived, it seems that the reality of death is been very present to his thoughts, because when he next speaks in chapter 3, death is everywhere, and it is seen as something to be desired.

This points to his suffering, which has reached another dimension. Mental anguish adds to the physical pain and social ostracism. The mind has its own deep recesses and self-starting processes that can be beyond human knowledge and control, especially when the body is racked with discomfort. In the silence, Job desires death because he has become engulfed by a darkness of soul. Thoughts can be harder to cope with than sores, and a vent must be found for the anguish. He despises life and complains bitterly that he cannot be deprived of it yet; but strangely, he never thinks of ending it himself. From then on he is alone and in the dark.

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