The Heavenly Court and the Accuser’s Challenge

Job 1:6–12 — “The Heavenly Court and the Accuser’s Challenge.”

WHAT IS HAPPENING The narrator gives the reader information Job never receives: Job is introduced as genuinely upright, and the heavenly challenge concerns whether he serves God only because life is good. The disasters that follow therefore cannot be explained by the friends’ simple formula that great suffering proves great hidden sin.

THIS MOVEMENT The section’s own focus is “The Heavenly Court and the Accuser’s Challenge.” It begins, “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.” and closes, “And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.”.