Holy, Righteous, and Much-Suffering Job

Life

Job was a descendant of Esau, the grandson of Abraham, and he lived in Arabia about two thousand years before Christ. His father's name was Zareth and his mother's Bosora; his full name was Jobab. He was an honorable, God-fearing, and exceedingly wealthy man. But in the seventy-ninth year of his life, God permitted heavy temptations to fall upon him through Satan, as is described in detail in the Book of Job. And in a single day Job lost all his enormous possessions, and his sons, and his daughters. Then a grievous illness fell upon him, from which his entire body was covered with sores from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, and Job lay upon a dung heap outside the city and scraped the pus from his wounds with a piece of broken pottery. But Job did not murmur against God; rather, he patiently endured all his afflictions to the end. Therefore God restored his health and gave him wealth far greater than he had before, and again seven sons and three daughters were born to him, as many as he had had before. And Job lived in all two hundred and forty-eight years, ever glorifying and praising God. Job is considered the model of patient endurance of every suffering that God sends upon us, and a prefiguration of the suffering Lord Jesus.

From the Hymn of Praise

Tell me, brother, what canst thou endure,And I shall tell thee how much of a man thou art.Righteous Job, rich and most glorious,Was cast by Satan upon a dung heap,