Job Chapter 1 verse 6 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 6. - Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. By "the sons of God" it is generally admitted that, in this place, the angels are meant (so again in Job 38:7). The meaning of the phrase is probably different in Genesis 6:2. Angels and men are alike "sons of God," as created by him, in his image, to obey and serve him. Christ, the "Only Begotten," is his Son in quite a different sense. We may gather, perhaps, from this place and Job 2:1 that there are fixed times at which the angelic host, often sent out by the Almighty on distant errands, has to gather together, one and all, before the great white throne, to pay homage to their Lord, and probably to give an account of their doings. And Satan came also among them. The word "Satan" has the article prefixed to it השׂתן here and elsewhere in Job, as in Zechariah 3:1, 2 and in Luke 22:31; Revelation 12:9. Thus accompanied, it is less a proper name than an appellative - "the adversary" (comp. 1 Peter 5:8; ὁ ἀντίδικος). In 1 Chronicles 21:1, without the article, it is undoubtedly a proper name, as in the New Testament, passim. Accusation of men before God is one of the special offices of the evil spirit (see Zechariah 3:1, 2), who is "the accuser of the brethren, he that accuses them before God day and night" (Revelation 12:10). The accusations that he makes may be either true or false, but they are so often false that his ordinary New Testament name is ὁ διάβολος, "the Slanderer." The existence of an evil spirit must have been known to all who read or heard the story of the fall of man (Genesis 3.), and the descriptive epithet, "the Adversary," is likely to have been in use from a very early date. The notion that the Satan of the Old Testament is a reflex of the Persian Ahriman, and that the Jews derived their belief upon the subject from the Persians, is quite untenable. The character and position of Satan in the Hebrew system are quite unlike those of Ahriman (Angro-mainyus) in the religion of the Zoroastrians (see 'Ancient Monarchies,' vol. 3. pp. 104-113).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(6) Sons of God.--Comp. Job 38:7, Genesis 6:2; Genesis 6:4; and for the sense comp. 1Kings 22:19. The phrase probably means the angels; or at all events an incident in the unseen spiritual world is referred to simultaneous with a corresponding one on earth. (Comp. 1Corinthians 11:10.) In the latter sense, a solemn thought is suggested by it to those who join in the public worship of God.Satan.--The word appears in the Old Testament as the name of a specific person only here and in Zechariah 3:2, and possibly in 1Chronicles 21:1 and Psalm 109:6. If this psalm is David's, according to the inscription, no reliance can be placed on speculations as to the late introduction of a belief in Satan among the Jews, nor, therefore, on any as to the lateness of these early chapters of Job. Precisely the same word is used, apparently as a common name, in the history of Balaam (Numbers 22:22; Numbers 22:32), also in 1Samuel 29:4, and 1Kings 5:4; 1Kings 11:14; 1Kings 11:23; 1Kings 11:25, where it can hardly be otherwise. Here only and in Zechariah it is found with the definite article "the adversary." The theory of the personality of the evil one must largely depend upon the view we take of these and other passages of Scripture as containing an authoritative revelation. . . .