From a Trickle to a Downpour...

You’ve heard the statement: “When it rains, it pours.” What this really means is that misfortune or difficult situations tend to follow each other in rapid succession or sometimes, all at one time. 

The book of Job is actually the perfect example of it “pouring when raining.” First, it was all of Job’s oxen and asses that were carried off and his servants killed. Then all his sheep and the servants tending them were burned up with fire. Then the greatest heartbreak: a great wind caused the house where all ten of his children were gathered, to collapse, leaving no survivors. 

            For this particular book of the Bible we really can’t separate Job from his wife. In truth she experienced the same heartbreak and loss just as much as her husband did. And even though she didn’t have to deal with the boils on her own body, it was bad enough to have to watch her husband suffer through it.

As you read through this forty-two chapter book, you learn much about the character of Job. He was a man of integrity, perfect and upright. He was also a family man with seven sons and three daughters. He had great possessions: camels, sheep, oxen, asses, as well as a great household. To this extent he was known as the greatest of all the men of the east. (Job 1:3) Through all that he suffered, and much to Satan’s dismay, Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly (Job 1:22).

On the other hand, not much is written about his wife. What do we really know about her? The only time she appears in Scripture, we find her saying to her husband: Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die (Job 2:9). These few words, in all honesty, do not paint her in a very flattering light. But what we have to consider is what led up to this one and only time she speaks in Scripture. In reality, these words are the result of a heart breaking from grief and pain. Together she and her husband had lost almost all of their possessions, and every one of their children were dead. Now she stands by helplessly as her husband sits in the ashes, scraping his sores with a broken piece of ceramic. How dark their life had become.

For Job, he expressed his grief by rending his mantle, shaving his head, and falling to the ground. Yet when he fell to the ground it wasn’t to wallow in self-pity. He simply worshipped by saying The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21) It’s not surprising then that when his wife bids him to curse God and die that he gently chides her for speaking like one of the foolish women. He then draws her attention from singularly focusing on the grief and pain to the reality of life around them: What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God; and shall we not receive evil? (Job 2:10)

From this point on we no longer hear about Job’s wife. We do, however, catch a glimpse of what she was up to at the end of the book, when the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the beginning…He had also seven sons and three daughters…and in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job. (Job 42:12, 13, 15). More than likely she was too busy raising babies and running a bustling household than to be found mourning all that she had lost.

Charles Spurgeon once said, “To trust God in the light is nothing, but to trust God in the dark—that is faith.” Everyone faces dark times in their lives: times when pain and loss cloud our perspective making trusting God difficult. Just as Job’s wife was reminded to turn her focus from the grief that caused her to consider cursing God and dying; we must be reminded to follow Job’s example. With simple faith we must fall to the ground and worship the One who gives and the One who takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Simply His,