‘You incited me to strike Job’

Author:

QUESTION:   We know of God’s Impassibility. Then how is the instance where God says to Satan ‘You incited me to strike Job’ to be understood?

ANSWER:

Summary of main points

  • Job 2:3 uses covenant-courtroom (anthropopathic) speech: God describes Satan as the instigator in the historical sequence, not as a power that manipulates God’s inner life.

  • “Impassibility” means God is not involuntarily acted upon or emotionally overpowered; it does not mean God is inert, unloving, or unresponsive in His works.

  • The text teaches divine sovereignty plus real secondary agency: Satan incites, God permissively wills and judicially governs, and the action is carried out in time without implying change or passion in God.

  • A strong canonical parallel is 2 Sam 24:1 compared with 1 Chr 21:1, where the same inciting is attributed to the LORD and to Satan, indicating layered causality rather than contradiction.

Exegesis

Job 2:3 (ESV)

The LORD says to Satan:

“You incited me against him to destroy him without reason.” (Job 2:3, ESV, Crossway)

Hebrew: key terms and syntax

The relevant clause in the Masoretic Text is:

וַתְּסִיתֵנִי בּוֹ לְבַלְּעוֹ חִנָּם
Transliteration: vattəsitēni bo leballəʿo hinnam

  • וַתְּסִיתֵנִי (vattəsitēni) is from סוּת (sut), commonly “to incite, entice, instigate.” Form: Hiphil (causative) with 2ms subject (“you”) and 1cs object (“me”): “you incited/enticed me.”

  • בּוֹ (bo) in this context has the sense “against him” (that is, to move someone against a target).

  • לְבַלְּעוֹ (leballəʿo) from בלע (balaʿ), “to swallow up, engulf, destroy.” The infinitive expresses purpose/result: “to swallow him up/destroy him.”

  • חִנָּם (hinnam) means “for nothing, without cause.” In Job’s frame, it negates any moral grounds in Job for the calamity (not that God lacks any ultimate wise purpose).

Exegetical point: the verb does not require that God was internally overpowered. It can describe the historical occasioning of an action in a judicial setting: Satan pressed an accusation and sought permission; God granted it within His governance.

Theological Analysis

1) What impassibility actually denies (and what it does not)

Classical impassibility (in mainstream patristic and historic Protestant theology) denies that God:

  • is subject to involuntary emotional fluctuations,

  • can be psychologically “moved” as creatures are moved,

  • undergoes change in His inner life due to external forces.

It does not deny that God truly wills, loves, judges, shows mercy, or acts in history. It also does not require that biblical language about God’s “anger” or “regret” be false; rather, such language is analogical and accommodated, describing real divine relations and actions from within creaturely experience.

So, Job 2:3 is not claiming: “Satan manipulated God’s emotional state.” It is saying: “Satan was the instigating agent in the dialogical/court scenario that led to this permitted judgment.”

2) Anthropopathism and accommodation

Scripture often speaks of God in human terms (anthropomorphism: bodily terms; anthropopathism: emotional/psychological terms) to communicate truly but not exhaustively.

In Job 1-2, the narrative is staged as a heavenly court. Satan functions as the accuser. God’s statement “you incited me” fits that legal drama: Satan is blamed as the malicious instigator, even though God remains sovereign Judge.

This is a standard interpretive move within conservative grammatical-historical reading: take the language seriously as revelation, but interpret it according to genre and idiom.

3) Layered causality: primary and secondary agency

A coherent conservative model is:

  • God is the primary cause and sovereign governor of all that occurs.

  • Creatures (including fallen spiritual beings) are real secondary agents.

  • God can permissively will an event (granting a bounded permission) without being the moral author of evil.

  • Satan’s incitement is a true secondary cause in the narrative sequence, but it does not imply Satan is the efficient cause of God’s will.

In Job, Satan proposes the test; God sets the limits; Satan executes the malice; God rules over the whole process.

4) Canonical parallel: incitement attributed to God and to Satan

A very important interpretive control is the comparison:

  • “Again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.'” (2 Sam 24:1, ESV, Crossway)

  • “Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel.” (1 Chr 21:1, ESV, Crossway)

The same event is described with two levels of attribution:

  • Divine judicial purpose (2 Sam 24:1).

  • Satanic instigation as secondary agent (1 Chr 21:1).

This is strong evidence that biblical authors are comfortable with layered causality without implying God is passible or manipulable. It also supports reading Job 2:3 similarly: Satan incites as proximate instigator; God governs as sovereign judge.

Historical Context

Job’s prologue is framed as a courtroom challenge regarding Job’s integrity. The “inciting” language fits forensic rhetoric: it assigns culpability to the accuser for pursuing a destructive case. In that world, to say “you incited me against him” is not a metaphysical claim about divine emotional volatility but a judicial characterization of the accuser’s role in the proceedings.

Scholarly Insight (non-quoted, for orientation)

If you want deeper technical treatments within broadly conservative theology:

  • Henry C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949). See sections on divine immutability and anthropopathic language.

  • Robert W. Yarbrough, 1-3 John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008). Useful for how “knowing God” entails obedience (conceptually adjacent to impassibility because it treats divine realities as covenantal and ethical, not merely conceptual).

  • For a more analytic defense of impassibility in a broadly evangelical context, look at recent work by proponents of classical theism (often Reformed). I am not quoting because you required page-precise verification.

If you want, name 1-2 specific theologians you trust on impassibility (or upload a page/photo excerpt), and I will integrate their exact formulations with full SBL citation.

Practical implications for interpretation

  • Do not flatten narrative-accommodated speech into a literal psychology of God. That produces a de facto passibilism or open-theist drift.

  • Do not go to the opposite extreme and treat the text as empty metaphor. The text reveals something real: Satan is culpable as accuser; God is sovereign and sets bounds; Job’s suffering is not retributive for a specific sin.

  • Read “without reason” (hinnam) inside Job’s argument: it denies Job’s deserving-cause, not God’s wise governance.

 

Categories: Word & Topic Studies