"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
Job 1:21 · King James Bible
The story
Job (pronounced Jobe) lives in the land of Uz, sometime very early — probably in the age of the patriarchs. He is described in the first verse of the book as "perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil" (Job 1:1). He has seven sons, three daughters, a great house, and vast flocks and herds. He is the greatest man in the east.
In a scene the reader is allowed to see but Job never sees, Satan appears among the sons of God, and the Lord permits him to test Job. In one afternoon Job loses his oxen, his sheep, his camels, his servants, and all ten of his children. His response is one of the most extraordinary sentences in Scripture: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
Then Satan is permitted to touch his body. Job is covered with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. He sits on an ash-heap and scrapes his sores with a broken piece of pottery. His wife says, "Curse God, and die." Job answers, "What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" (2:10).
Three friends come — Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar. They sit with Job in silence for seven days and seven nights. Then they speak. The next thirty-odd chapters are their arguments and Job's answers. The friends insist that suffering must be Job's fault: God is just, therefore Job must have sinned. Job insists that he has not, and demands to speak with God face to face.
At last, out of a whirlwind, the Lord answers Job — not with an explanation, but with a mountain of questions: "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?… Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?… Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?" Job repents in dust and ashes: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee" (42:5). The Lord rebukes the three friends for not speaking rightly, restores Job's fortunes twofold, and gives him ten more children. He dies old and full of days.
Why he matters
Job is the book Christian households reach for when the world does not make sense. It does not say: bad things do not happen. It says: God is not absent from them, and he is not answerable to us. James in the New Testament writes, "Ye have heard of the patience of Job" (James 5:11) — but Job's endurance is not passive. It is the endurance of a man who keeps arguing with God because he still trusts him enough to speak.
Where to read
The book of Job (KJV) is long — 42 chapters. Start with chapters 1–3 (the disaster), then jump to chapters 38–42 (God's answer and Job's repentance). Return later for the middle.