---
title: Job 1:12
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/job-1-12/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/job-1-12.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Job 1:12
testament: OT
section: Poetry
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Job 1:12

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> “Very well,” said the LORD to Satan. “Everything he has is in your hands, but you must not lay a hand on the man himself.”  Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Then Jehovah said to Satan: "Look! Everything that he has is in your hand. Only do not lay your hand on the man himself!" So Satan went out from the presence of Jehovah."

## JW Usage

Job is foundational to the Watchtower's theodicy. Satan's challenge is understood as raising the issue of whether anyone serves Jehovah out of genuine love, and Jehovah's response is read as permitting a test to settle the question before all creation — the same structure applied to Eden and to the six thousand years since.

## Protestant Usage

Agree that this is the pattern. It is, and the Watchtower is right to build on it. Then look carefully at what Jehovah actually does. Satan cannot touch anything until Jehovah says so, and when Jehovah speaks he sets an exact limit: everything he has is in your hand, only do not lay a hand on the man himself. In chapter 2 the boundary moves, and again it is Jehovah who moves it — he is in your hand, only do not take his life. So Satan operates by divine commission, within divinely set limits, and Jehovah is the one setting them. That is a great deal more than standing back. And Job himself draws the conclusion at 1:21 — Jehovah gave, Jehovah has taken away — with the narrator adding that in all this Job did not sin or accuse God of anything wrong. The question follows quietly: if permission comes with foreknowledge, the power to prevent, and precisely drawn boundaries set for a purpose, what is the difference between that and a decision? Compare Job 2:6, Acts 4:27, Genesis 50:20.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Permitted Issue Is Still a Decree](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/watchtower-determinism-author-of-evil.md) — When Watchtower theodicy reinvents the predestination it denies [Authority]