Job 1:11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

But put forth thy hand now In a way of justice and severity, as the phrase of putting or stretching forth God's hand is used, Isaiah 5:25, and Ezekiel 25:7; Ezekiel 25:13; Ezekiel 25:16: and touch all that he hath That is, afflict or destroy his children and substance; and he will curse thee to thy face He who is now so forward to serve and bless thee, will then openly and boldly blaspheme thy name, and reproach thy providence as unjust and unmerciful to him. Or, as Schultens paraphrases the words, “He will, with the highest degree of insolence and contumacy, entirely renounce thee and religion.” Thus, when Satan could not accuse Job of any thing really ill, he charges him with having merely selfish and sinister ends in view in doing good, which was, in effect, charging him with being a hypocrite. Let us not think it strange if those who are approved and accepted of God, be unjustly censured by the devil and his instruments; and if they be otherwise perfectly unexceptionable, it is easy to charge them with hypocrisy, as Satan charged Job, and they have no way to clear themselves, but patiently to wait for the judgment of God. As there is nothing we should dread more than being hypocrites, so there is nothing we should dread less than being called and accounted so without cause. It was a great truth that Job did not fear God for naught; he got much by it: for godliness is great gain. But it was a false lie that he would not have feared God if he had not got this by it, as the event proved. Job's friends charged him with hypocrisy because he was greatly afflicted, Satan because he greatly prospered. It is no hard matter for those to calumniate that seek occasion. Let us remember it is not mercenary to look at the eternal recompense in our obedience; but to aim merely or chiefly at temporal advantages in our religion, and to make it subservient to them, is spiritual idolatry, worshipping the creature more than the Creator, and is likely to end in a fatal apostacy. Men cannot long serve God and Mammon.