Egypt’s Curse

Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and struck Job with severe boils from the sole of his foot to the top of his head.  Job 2:7 NASB

Severe boils – It’s quite possible that Job is the oldest book in the Tanakh.  That means it was written before the Pentateuch and the story predates the Hebrew exodus from Egypt.  But unless we understand the connection between haśśāṭān’s attack on Job’s physical condition and what happened in Egypt, we’ll miss the deep theological association.  You see, “severe boils” is the Hebrew šĕḥîn raʿ, the same word used for one of the plagues brought upon the Egyptians.

The skin disease of boils was one of the ten plagues brought by the Lord on Egypt (Ex 9:9–11). The Lord threatens boils if Israel will not obey him (Deut 28:27, 35). God is viewed as the ultimate reason for the disease, even in the case of Job, where the more immediate agent is Satan (Job 2:7), and the proximate cause may well have been germs.^[1]

In Job’s case, it’s not just šĕḥîn; it’s šĕḥîn raʿ, literally evil boils.  Participants in the story draw the same conclusions that are associated with the exodus: God is punishing Job.  What else could they possibly infer?  What else could we possibly infer?  Of course, we have the advantage of the author’s perspective so we “know” that Job is innocent, underserving of all these trials.  But God is still behind it, isn’t He?  And doesn’t that make it necessary to conclude that God is punishing the innocent?  As my friend Steven Brown once said, “I have never doubted God’s sovereignty, but I have doubted His benevolence.”  Maybe that’s the real question in this story.  Is God really benevolent?  So far, it hardly seems so.  Without the author’s omniscience, we are left with a phenomenological description that defies God’s benevolence.  There can be only one solution to this dilemma.  Job must be guilty!

It doesn’t take much to understand how human beings come to this determination.  If we maintain the absolute benevolence of God, if we worship Him because of His utterly pure character, then we must conclude that physical assaults are the result of some defect in us, not God.  The disciples drew the same conclusion when they asked Yeshua what the blind man did  to deserve such a handicap.  Even today there are many Christians who believe that illness, financial difficulties, and general personal tragedies are indications of continuing sin, if not in the person who is experiencing the punishment then in the ancestors who never asked forgiveness.  Job’s story, without the author’s crib notes, leads directly to this belief.  A good God is not an unfair and fickle God.  Therefore, tragedy must somehow be deserved, if not personally then generationally or even cast within the original sin’s extended deformity of humanity.  Egypt was punished with boils for defying the good God.  Boils are a sign of divine displeasure.  And so we have the heightened contradiction.  Perhaps you have drawn the same logical conclusion.  Perhaps you’ll understand why Job’s friends can’t believe his claims.  Perhaps you think like the disciples thought.  We will see.

Topical Index: boils, šĕḥîn, Egypt, plague, benevolence, Job 2:7

^[1] Martens, E. A. (1999). 2364 שׁחן. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament(electronic ed., p. 916). Moody Press.