When Rahma heard these words, she wept, and said, “After so many afflictions, shall the name of Job be taken from the number of the prophets? And after so many sufferings shall he perish everlastingly?”
Then she went to Job and told him all that had been said to her.
Job was greatly angered when she told him the tenor of the words, and he cried out, “Have I not warned thee these two times not to speak with him, who is the author of my affliction? Wait till I am well, and I will give thee a hundred strokes with a rod.”[446]
But the story is told differently by others. It is said that the third time Satan appeared as a baker, and Rahma wanted bread, but had nought to pay. Then said the pretended baker, “Thou hast locks of very beautiful hair; cut off thy hair and give it me, and thou shalt take the largest of my loaves.”
Then she cut off three locks and gave them to him.
And when Job saw that she had done this, he was filled with fury, and he swore that when he was well he would beat her for having cut off her hair.[447]
Thus Satan triumphed in making Job to sin by swearing, and threatening to ill-treat a true and good woman.
Next the Evil One went as an angel, and announced to all the people of the land that he came from God to declare to them that Job was no more reckoned among the prophets; and that they were not to trust his words and believe his doctrine, but were to return to the worship of those gods he had blasphemed and cast out.
Soon after, Job heard his three friends, Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar, converse together, and repeat what had been told them by Satan; and the thought that he was supposed to be rejected by God from among His prophets, was so distressing to him, that he cried out, “Truly, O God! evil has befallen me; but Thou art the most merciful of those who show mercy.”[448] That is, the words of men are cruel, but Thou, O God, wilt deliver me out of all my evils.
Job was sick for seven years, and all that while his wife ministered to him.