Satan left her...

            A few months ago, while reading through the book of Job, an aspect of Satan’s attack on Job jumped out at me that I had not considered before: In Satan’s efforts to entice Job to forsake his righteousness and to curse God, Satan removed Job’s immense wealth, abundant possessions, precious children, and even his health…but, Satan left his wife.

Satan stripped Job of all those other portions of his life because they were great blessings to him, the deprivation of which Satan was sure would cause Job to drop his (supposed) mask of righteousness and rail against the Lord. Why, then, did Satan not also remove Job’s wife? The possible answer to this question, as a wife myself, made me tremble. I don’t think it was merely because she herself was not a blessing to Job. I believe Satan did not remove Job’s wife because he knew that her presence in Job’s life, rather than her absence, was more likely to entice Job to curse God in his suffering than to encourage him to remain steadfast in the Lord. Ouch.       

I went on to ask myself, why was this so? In my study of the brief portion of Job chapter 2 where the wife appears, I came to the conclusion that it was the condition of the wife’s heart that made her a ready tool for Satan to use against Job. Satan’s devastating treatment of Job was all in an effort to prove that Job’s righteous living was merely a shallow, natural response to the abundant wealth and prosperity God had blessed him with, rather than an outward reflection of a heart truly devoted to the Lord. Satan’s ultimate goal was to hear Job curse God to His face, and thus, to prove Job’s righteousness a sham (Job 1:11; 2:5). After Satan afflicts Job with horrific sores over his entire body, Job’s wife says to him, “Do you still hold fast your blameless uprightness? Renounce God and die!” (Job 2:9, AMP). In the NASB, her words are translated, “Curse God and die!” That sounds a lot like what Satan wanted Job to do, doesn’t it?

The Bible does not give any indication of what the wife was like before Satan afflicts them—she may have appeared to walk uprightly as Job was doing, or, at least, she may have supported Job’s righteous living. However, her words in that one verse expose the true nature of her heart. Though we do not know what her heart was most attached too--whether it was to their material security, their children, or whatever it might have been--her heart was clearly more attached to that "something else" than to God.
Job’s response to her also exposes her nature to us, as he likens her to “one of the impious and foolish women” (Job 2:10, AMP). According to the dictionary, “impious” means “lacking reverence for God” and “disrespectful.” Job is too tactful to call her impious and foolish directly, but she is clearly displaying a lack of reverence for God and a lack of respect for her husband, as she reprimands, rather than encourages, his continued devotion to the Lord in the midst of his suffering. Thus, the condition of her heart was one of greed, irreverence, and disrespect.

            Having said that, I would like to pause briefly and extend grace to Job’s wife and her response to all that had happened to them. This is not to excuse her response, but rather to acknowledge that they experienced devastating loss, not only of their great wealth, but of all their children as well. Even Job, though he never curses God for what happens to him, later cries out that he wished he had never been born (Job 3:3). I can’t even imagine the level of anguish both Job and his wife must have experienced, and then, for her to see her husband afflicted with sores from his head to his feet…Who is to say we would not also be tempted to respond in anger and despair as she did? It is only by the grace of God that we would have the strength and faith to respond differently to such horrific suffering. It is only by God’s grace that our hearts and lives become devoted to the Lord to begin with, and, as a result, that we develop the same mindset as Job: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21, NASB).

            Climbing aboard my original train of thought, it appears that the wife’s heart was not devoted to God in this way, but, rather, that it was more attached to her worldly possessions and wealth (which included her children) than to the Lord. Satan may have been aware of this already, and that may have been why, instead of taking her from Job as he took Job’s children, he let her remain with Job. Satan may have had a strong inclination that the condition of her heart, after the tragedy he was about to inflict on them, would likely cause her to encourage her husband away from the Lord in the midst of his suffering, rather than closer to Him. Satan may have even influenced her more directly, since the condition of her heart would have left her open to Satan’s manipulation.

Considering this possibility, I was reminded of another instance in Scripture where the condition of a person’s heart allowed him to be overcome by Satan, to the point of betraying our Savior to His death. Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus was fully under God’s control and was part of the prophetic journey that led our Savior to the cross, but it is also worth noting that Judas was not a man fully committed to the Lord who suddenly turned against Him. We are told in John chapter 12 that Judas was “a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it” (v. 6). We learn this after Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume, perfume that, as Judas points out, could have been sold “for the poor,” though he really meant “for himself” (Matt. 26:9). After Judas is denied this potential money, his greed leads him to the chief priests, to whom he ultimately agrees to betray Jesus for the sum of thirty pieces of silver (Matt. 26:14-16). There are many thoughts surrounding why Judas betrayed Jesus to the chief priests, but two aspects of his betrayal are evident from Scripture: Judas was more devoted to money than to the Lord, and Satan was able to enter into him (John 13:27). I would not be surprised if it was, at least partly, the condition of Judas’ heart that allowed Satan to enter him.

            Returning to Job’s wife, it seems her heart was in a similar position as Judas’, and, as a result, Satan may have been using her, whether directly (by entering into her as he entered into Judas) or indirectly (by merely letting her live so she could just “be herself”), to further his attempts to shatter Job’s faith. Again, there is nothing from Scripture to indicate that either situation was the case, but we do know that out of everything Job was stripped of, Satan left his wife.

            This fact causes me to tremble because, as a wife myself, the thought that the condition of my heart could lead me to assist Satan in his attacks on my husband, humbles and frightens me. I find peace, however, in remembering the security I have in the Lord because of my faith in His redemptive work at the cross, which shields me from any such direct manipulation as Satan had over Judas Iscariot. However, I am also aware that I still struggle with my sinful nature, and that Satan can, and will, take advantage of that if I am not careful to respond to the Holy Spirit’s conviction of sin in my life.
           I do not want to allow my heart to become hardened to any part of my fleshly struggles to the point that I open a door for Satan to use my selfishness, my pride, my insecurities, my fears, my anger, my whatever to entice my husband away from the Lord rather than closer to Him. I am not saying that my husband’s spiritual walk is my responsibility, because, ultimately, my husband’s relationship with the Lord is not, and should not be, dependent on me. However, being that the Lord has made us one, I do know that what I say and do can have a very real effect on my husband’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state.

Praise be to God! though, that no matter what my flesh or Satan may entice me to do, and no matter how this may affect my husband, that there is nothing God cannot redeem! Satan may have intended Job’s wife to be a curse to him, but, ultimately, God used Job’s wife to bless Job even more abundantly than he had been blessed before, by granting him seven sons and three daughters, daughters whose beauty was unmatched throughout the land (Job 42:13-15). And Satan’s manipulation of Judas to betray Jesus to His death was perfectly orchestrated by God to redeem mankind and to defeat Satan and death forever! God truly does turn our ashes into beauty!

I want to walk in that beauty from the beginning, though. I want to be a wife that encourages my husband to remain faithful to the Lord in the midst of life’s trials and suffering, as my Savior enables me to do the same. I don’t want to be a wife who allows a love of money, of possessions, of temporary health and security…of anything other than my Savior, to draw me away from the Lord, and, in so doing, to threaten to take my husband with me. If Satan is going to attack the blessings the Lord has bestowed upon my husband, in an effort to destroy his faith, I would much rather be a blessing that helps to strengthen my husband’s faith than to be a curse in my husband’s life that poses no threat to Satan.