El Shaddai means, GOD ALMIGHTY, that is to say, he can everything, he is omnipotent. In order to be Almighty, he has to be perfect. Can you imagine an omnipotent God who is not perfect? Can you imagine the havoc he would play? Wherever there is power without perfection there is chaos. But El Shaddai is perfect. Zophar declares this: “Can you fathom the mystery of God? Or can you probe the limits of the Almighty?” (Job 8:3). Moses confirms this, saying: “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice: a God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deut. 32:4). Jehovah visited Abraham, and said to him: “I am God Almighty. Walk before me, and be blameless” (Gen. 17:1). As Jehovah and El Shaddai are the same person, both their works are the same. Now, Job was a servant of Jehovah (Job 42:7). And Jehovah testified about the righteousness of Job, saying to Satan: “Have you considered my servant, Job? For there is none like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil” (Job 1:8). Satan, with the evil intention of making Job sin, incited Jehovah against him, saying: “‘Does Job fear God for nothing? Haven’t you made a hedge around him, and around his house, and around all that he has, on every side? But put forth your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face.’ Jehovah said to Satan, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only on himself don’t put forth your hand’” (Job 1:8-12).

Job never blamed his sufferings on Satan, but on Jehovah (Job 19:21). Job’s complaints are not directed at Jehovah, but at the Almighty.

Let us analyze:

1. Job complains against the Almighty because he had made his soul bitter (Job 27:2). If Job was a servant of Jehovah, a sincere and righteous man, who feared god and ran from evil, it seems like the Almighty had not been righteous toward him, neither had he acted with perfection. It seems that the Almighty perverted justice and righteousness.

2. Job call out, saying: “I haven’t gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have treasured up the words of his mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12). And Job, disheartened, follows it by saying, “For God has made my heart faint. The Almighty has terrified me” (Job 23:16). Only a satanic god could act like this toward such a devoted servant as Job, who would rather go without food for the love of the word of God.

3. Job did not forget about God. Job did not sin against God. When his ten sons were killed, and when Satan destroyed all he had — houses, flocks, fields — Job said: “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. Jehovah gave, and Jehovah has taken away. Blessed be the name of Jehovah” (Job 1:21). For the second time Satan incited Jehovah against Job. Jehovah said one more time: “Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life” (Job 2:6). And Satan went out and smote Job with sore boils. Job’s wife incited him to curse Jehovah for the great injustice and cruelty. However, the Scriptures say that Job rebuked his wife and did not sin with his lips (Job 2:7-10). How can this be? When he handed the faithful and righteous Job into the hands of Satan, Jehovah acted like an unrighteous judge who delivers an honest man in the hands of executioners to be tortured. And what about the perfection of the Almighty? Is not there in him injustice, and does he not pervert the right of men? If, in this pit where we live a judge acts the way Jehovah acted, he is arrested.

4. Let us read the words of Job: “Oh that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me; when his lamp shone on my head, and by his light I walked through darkness, as I was in the ripeness of my days, when the friendship of God was in my tent, when the Almighty was yet with me, and my children were around me” (Job 29:2-5). Job makes it clear that the Almighty abandoned him. He reveals that the Almighty was his adversary (Job 31:35). As an adversary, he overturned the life of Job, fenced him with his net, entrenched Job’s path, set darkness in his ways, stripped him of his honor, removed his crown, wrested his crown from him, and took away the hope of that faithful servant (Job 19:6-10). Is this the perfection of the Almighty? Is this the righteousness that does not pervert the right of a righteous man?

5. Job complains, suffocated by the storm that tumbled down over his head without cause, for the very Jehovah confesses this (Job 2:3): “For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me” (Job 6:4). When he sent poisonous arrows it becomes clear that the Almighty El Shaddai and Satan are the same person, for Paul says: “above all, taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one” (Eph. 6:16). How is it possible that God, the Father, who wants to save all men, would throw deathly poisonous arrows at those he wants to save? God, the Father, is not inflamed with fury to kill sinners, but he is inflamed with love to save them; and so he sent his only begotten Son, not to condemn, but to save. Jehovah, on the other hand, lived in murderous fury against his children (Deut. 32:22-25).

By Pastor Olavo Silveira Pereira