Job 2:9 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then said his wife Whom Satan had spared, that she might be a troubler and tempter to him. For it is his policy to send his temptations by those that are dear to us. We ought, therefore, carefully to watch, that we be not drawn to any evil by them whom we love and value the most. Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Art thou so weak as still to persist in the practice of righteousness, when it is not only unprofitable to thee, but the chief occasion of all these thy insupportable miseries, and when God himself not only forsakes and leaves thee in this helpless and hopeless condition, but is turned to be thy greatest enemy? This is evidently the meaning of the expression, holding fast his integrity, when used by God, speaking of Job, Job 2:3, and, it seems, must be its meaning here; and not, as some commentators have supposed, the maintaining that he was innocent of those secret sins with which his friends appeared to have charged him; a sense of the words which would not at all suit the connection in which this, or the third verse, stands with the verses following. Curse God and die Seeing thy blessing and praising God avail thee so little, it is time for thee to change thy language. Reproach him to his face, and tell him of his injustice and unkindness to thee; and that he loves his enemies and hates his friends, and that will provoke him to take away thy life, and so end thy torments. Or, Curse God, though thou die for it. This is the sense in which the same Hebrew word is evidently used by Satan, (Job 1:11,) and, as it appears from the next verse, that Job's wife was now under Satan's influence, and was an instrument employed by him to tempt her husband, and so to forward his design, which certainly was to prevail with Job to curse or reproach God; this seems to be her meaning. Inasmuch, however, as the original word, although it sometimes evidently signifies to curse, yet generally means to bless, it may be so interpreted here if we consider Job's wife as speaking ironically, as many, even pious, persons, are represented in the Scriptures to have spoken. The meaning then will be, Bless God and die That is, I see thou art set upon blessing God; thou blessest him for giving, and thou blessest him for taking away: and thou art even blessing him for thy loathsome and tormenting diseases, and he rewards thee accordingly, giving thee more and more of that kind of mercy for which thou blessest him. Go on, therefore, in this thy generous course, and die as a fool dieth. And, this being her meaning, it is not strange that he reproves her so sharply for it in the next words.