And the LORD said unto Satan,
Behold, he is in your hand; but spare his life.
Read Chapter 2
Didymus the Blind
AD 398
The Lord allows even this for our best, so that Job should be presented as an expression and image of perseverance—like a marked pillar—and that he may be for his contemporaries and his successors an example of such virtue. Indeed, this did happen. From the fighter and athlete himself one can hear the words, “I know that I shall be vindicated.” When the Lord surrendered him, he said, “Only spare his life.” This phrase can be understood in the following way: often we see madness and confusion of mind in people. God alone, who knows the hidden, knows the reasons why these people have been surrendered [to testing] in such a way. What the Lord, therefore, wants to say is this: Do not numb or confuse Job’s mind. You may have what you demanded. Touch his flesh and bones. Consider whether “Only spare his life” might mean, “Do not kill him!” - "Commentary on Job 2.6"
“Only spare his soul.” God does not say this as if he wanted to prevent the devil from snatching Job’s life away, but he says “spare him.” That is, be careful not to destroy the natural state of Job’s mind and reason. So God arranged things in order that the devil, being convinced by the evidence of the facts, might acknowledge that Job, even though he was pressed by so many afflictions, could never be brought to blasphemy. - "Commentary on Job 2.6"
57. For He so forsakes us that He guards us, and so guards us that by the permitted case of temptation, He shews us our state of weakness. And he immediately went forth from before the face of the Lord, and by smiting him whom He had thus gotten he wounded him from the sole of his foot even to his crown. Thus, viz. in that when he receives permission, beginning with the least, and reaching even to the greater points, he as it were rends and pierces all the body of the mind [corpus mentis] with the temptations which he brings upon it, yet he does not attain to the smiting of the soul [animam], in that deep at the bottom of all the thoughts of the heart, the interior purpose of our secret resolution holds out, in the midst of the very wounds of gratification which it receives, so that although the enjoyment may eat into the mind, yet it does not so bend the set intent of holy uprightness as to bring it to the very softness of consenting. Yet it is our duty to cleanse the mere wounds ...
29. What fool even would believe that the Creator of all things was given up into ‘the hands of Satan?’ Yet who that is instructed by the Truth can be ignorant that of that very Satan all they are members who are Joined unto him by living frowardly? Thus Pilate shewed himself a member of him, who, even to the extremity of putting Him to death, knew not the Lord when He came for our Redemption. The chief priests proved themselves to be his body, who strove to drive the world's Redeemer from the world, by persecuting Him even to the cross. When then the Lord for our salvation gave Himself up to the hands of Satan's members, what else did He, but let loose that Satan's hand to rage against Himself, that by the very act whereby He Himself outwardly fell low, He might set us free both outwardly and inwardly. If therefore the hand of Satan is taken for his power, He after the flesh bore the hand of him, whose power over the body He endured even to the spitting, the buffetting, the str...
6. Here again, the safeguard of protection goes along with the permission to smite, and the dispensation of God both while guarding, forsakes his elect servant, and while forsaking, guards him. A portion of him He gives over, a portion He protects. For if he had left Job wholly in the hand of so dire a foe, what could have become of a mere man? And so with the very justice of the permission there is mixed a certain measure of pity, that in one and the same contest, both His lowly servant might rise by oppression, and the towering enemy be brought down by the permission. Thus the holy man is given over to the adversary's hand, but yet in his inmost soul he is held fast by the hand of his Helper. For he was of the number of those sheep, concerning whom Truth itself said in the Gospel, Neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. [John 10, 28] And yet it is said to the enemy, when he demands him, Behold, he is in thine hand. The same man then is at the same time in the hand of...
