In Brothers Karamazov, Father Zosima recounts being moved in his youth by the story of Job. I have entered in italics some commentary of my own:
In the land of Uz, there lived a man, righteous and God-fearing, and he had great wealth, so many camels, so many sheep and asses, and his children feasted, and he loved them very much and prayed for them.
From the wealth and storehouse of heaven, in his perfect heart, he lived; yet, he counted it not a thing to be grasped…
“It may be that my sons have sinned in their feasting.” Now the devil came before the Lord together with the sons of God, and said to the Lord that he had gone up and down the earth and under the earth. “And hast thou considered my servant Job?”
Hast thou seen my Christ?
God asked of him. And God boasted to the devil, pointing to his great and holy servant. And the devil laughed at God’s words. “Give him over to me and Thou wilt see that Thy servant will murmur against Thee and curse Thy name.” And God gave up the just man He loved so, to the devil.
And he was numbered with the transgressors…yet he did not open his mouth.
And the devil smote his children and his cattle and scattered his wealth, all of a sudden like a thunderbolt from heaven.
But upon Christ the entire force of the blow fell.
And Job rent his mantle and fell down upon the ground and cried aloud, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return into the earth; the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord for ever and ever.”…
Afterwards I heard the words of mockery and blame, proud words, “How could God give up the most loved of His saints for the diversion of the devil, take from him his children, smite him with sore boils so that he cleansed the corruption from his sores with a pot-sherd—and for no object except to boast to the devil!
And it shall be unto God’s glory.
‘See what My saint can suffer for My sake.’ ” But the greatness of it lies just in the fact that it is a mystery…And what mysteries are solved and revealed! God raises Job again, gives him wealth again.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name
Many years pass by, and he has other children and loves them. But how could he love those new ones when those first children are no more, when he has lost them? Remembering them, how could he be fully happy with those new ones, however dear the new ones might be?¹
Yet Christ, the perfect Job, was bereft of his children also, but in the mystery of His awful suffering, has received them back. They have not been replaced, but rather that which was lost is found, that which was dead is now alive. In Christ those very little one’s are received back.
The majesty of this second Job is such that God will ever more point to Him and ask, not Satan, but all the universe, “Hast thou seen my Christ?”
¹https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28054/28054-h/28054-h.html
Same & Other 