The days of affliction take hold of him for he is locked into this trial and has lost hope of ever being extracted from it. What was Job when exposed to the malice and subtlety of Satan? He could not begin to cope with such an adversary. And now Satan tied his mind in knots so that he was tormented without and within, except that God imposed a limit on what Satan was allowed to do. Yet the final outcome of this book teaches us that faith ought never to be abandoned, for even in this extremity Job was entitled to believe and would have been right to believe and to hold on. Satan wants to bring us to despair, as is evidenced by the desperate urgings of his mouthpiece, Job’s wife. He knows that our faith is our greatest defence and can resist anything that he is able to throw at us. He must therefore try to persuade us to put it down. Yet even in despair Job hung onto faith. Being in total darkness and at the very edge of hopelessness, he still did not resign all hope, for God secretly upheld him and at this time watched very carefully over him. What a triumph over the devil when the weakest of creatures, man, is able to defy the powers of darkness!