As introduced in last week’s reading, Job is written as a drama. This week’s reading is the prologue to the play. In it, we see two critical pieces of background. In scene 1 (1:1, 2:1-6), God continues to brag about how upright Job is, despite having lost all of his children and all of his property and wealth. At the same time, God is convinced by the Adversary to allow the Adversary to test Job further by attacking his body directly. The sores the Adversary inflicts make Job unclean. This is why Job takes up residence in the town’s garbage dump/ash heap. Scene 2 (verses 7-10) finds Job on the ash heap, scraping his sores to relieve the itch and pain, and being told by his wife to "curse God and die." She is only the first of Job’s closest living associates to take on the role of "adversary" to him in the days ahead.
Job is often associated with "patience" in popular sayings. In modern usage, "patience" is usually understood as quiet resignation to the way things are with some measure of hope things may get better. The end of this week’s reading (verse 10) can seem to justify that image of Job.
However, as the drama continues to unfold, Job is anything but patient in that sense. He does not curse God, but he does insist that he had done nothing to deserve what has befallen him. He also demands that God show up to defend Himslef for what has happened. Job continues to do exactly what his wife now and his friends later will ask him to stop doing: he "perseveres in his integrity" (verse 9).