Scripture · Psalm 18:25-30
Job 2:9-10
Job Mocked by His Wife
Then Job’s wife said to him, “Do you still retain your integrity? Curse God and die!” “You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept from God only good and not adversity?” In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.
For decades, viewers could not agree what the woman was saying to the seated man. A prisoner visited by a woman, Peter released by an angel, and Job confronted by his wife all passed through the painting’s history.
About the artwork
The picture entered the museum at Épinal in 1829 and was inventoried in 1832 as an anonymous work, perhaps Spanish. In 1929 the curator retained “A woman visiting a prisoner,” admitting the title was used for want of another. The absence of obvious sacred attributes helped keep the encounter open to incompatible readings.
Charles Sterling proposed Peter and the angel in 1934, despite the wingless figure; by 1936 the scene was being discussed as Job and his wife. The museum now records a signature at the lower right, although the 1934 catalogue called it unsigned. The changing title is part of this exact work’s history, not evidence that its meaning is now unlimited.
Featured in: Georges de La Tour’s Bible Paintings: The Candle Painter Hidden Under Other Names
What does Job 2:9-10 mean?
Job 2 follows the loss of his children, wealth and health. His wife tells him to abandon his integrity, curse God and die. Job refuses, asking whether they should receive good from God but not adversity. The narrator says he does not sin in what he says.
The exchange is not the book’s final answer to suffering. Job will lament, protest and dispute his friends’ explanations. Reading the picture beside these verses should therefore leave room for the ordeal that continues after the refusal, rather than making it a lesson in effortless acceptance.
Job 2:9–10 gives the ambiguous encounter its accepted subject: a devastated man confronting the demand to abandon his trust in God.
Sources
Image source and rights declaration.
Job 2 — Berean Standard Bible. The paired text read with its surrounding chapter.
Georges de La Tour’s Bible Paintings: The Candle Painter Hidden Under Other Names. Exact-work research, history and interpretive qualifications for this reading.
Les Peintres de la réalité en France au XVIIe siècle (1934). Historical catalogue, used with the owning institution’s current attribution and dating.
Also from Job:Job and His Three FriendsThe Lord Answering Job out of the Whirlwind
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