Job 2:1 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Job 2:1
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.
a day (as the warm hours) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
sons
בְּנֵ֣יbe.Nei
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine plural construct
God
הָֽאֱלֹהִ֔יםha.'E.lo.Him
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
came
וַיָּבֹ֙אוּ֙vai.ya.Vo.'u
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
present
לְהִתְיַצֵּ֖בle.hit.ya.Tzev
H3320
to place (any thing so as to stay) · preposition + verb, hithpael infinitive construct
LORD
יְהוָ֑הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
Satan
הַשָּׂטָן֙ha.sa.Tan
H7854
an opponent · definite article + noun, masculine singular absolute
came
וַיָּב֤וֹאvai.ya.Vo'
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
among
בְּתֹכָ֔םbe.to.Kham
H8432
a bisection · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
present
לְהִתְיַצֵּ֖בle.hit.ya.Tzev
H3320
to place (any thing so as to stay) · preposition + verb, hithpael infinitive construct
LORD
יְהוָֽהYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
Hebrews 1:14 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?
Luke 1:19 And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee the…
Isaiah 6:1-2 In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 2:1-6
Satan, that sworn enemy to God and all good men, is here pushing forward his malicious prosecution of Job, whom he hated because God loved him, and did all he could to separate between him and his God, to sow discord and make mischief between them, urging God to afflict him and then urging him to blaspheme God. One would have thought that he had enough of his former attempt upon Job, in which he was so shamefully baffled and disappointed; but malice is restless: the devil and his instruments are so. Those that calumniate good people, and accuse them falsely, will have their saying, though the evidence to the contrary be ever so plain and full and they have been cast in the issue which they t…
Again, there was a day, when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord,.... When good men, professors of religion, met together by agreement to worship the Lord; the Targum calls them companies of angels, interpreting the words of them, and of their standing before the Lord, as most interpreters do; how long this time of their meeting was from the former cannot be said, probably but a few days, a week or fortnight at most; the Targum says, it was on the day of the great judgment, and which, as in Job 1:6; was at the beginning of the year; so that according to this, and other Jewish writers, there was a whole year between this and the former meeting, and so between the first…
1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah, and Satan came also among them, to present himself before Jehovah.
The clause expressive of the purpose of their appearing is here repeated in connection with Satan (comp. on the contrary, Job 1:6), for this time he appears with a most definite object. Jehovah addresses Satan as He had done on the former occasion.
Tyndale Open Study Notes on Job 2:1-3
This scene is an exact repetition of the scene presented in 1:6-8.
The Church Fathers
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION. BLESSED Job, though aimed at for death in his temptation, gained growth unto life by the stroke. And our old enemy grieved to find that he had only multiplied his excellences by the very means, by which he had thought to do away with them, but whereas he sees that he has been worsted in the first struggle, he prepares himself for fresh assaults of temptations, and still has the boldness to augur evil of that holy man; for one that is evil can never believe goodness to exist, though proved by his experience. Now those circumstances, which were promised in the first infliction, are again subjoined.
Why does the author describe the angels in the act of presenting themselves daily before the Lord? He does so that we might learn no actual event is overlooked by God's providence, and that the angels report what happens every day. Every day they are sent to settle some question, even though we ignore all this. That is the reason why they were created; that is their task, as the blessed Paul says, "They are sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation." "And the devil," the text says, "also came among them." You know why the angels are present. But why is the devil present? The latter is present to tempt Job; the former, in order to regulate our matters. Why is the devil questioned again before the angels themselves? Because he had said before them, "He will curse you to your face." What a shameless nature! He has dared come back!
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Satan — Adversary; accuser. When used as a proper name, the Hebrew word so rendered has the article “the adversary” (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7). In the New Testament it is used as interchangeable with Diabolos, or…
Advocate · FIGURATIVE — FIGURATIVE
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
