Job 1:7-12a is a record of God's checking with Satan concerning Job.
God questioned Satan, asking him where he had come from (v. 7a).
In answer to God's question, Satan replied, "From roving the earth and going about in it" (v. 7b).
"Jehovah said to Satan, Have you considered My servant Job? For there is none like him on the earth, a perfect and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil" (v. 8). Here God was boasting to Satan regarding Job. If we read this carefully, we will see that God's boasting here was with the intention that Satan would do something for Him.
Satan answered Jehovah, asking Him, "Does Job fear God without cause? Have You not set a hedge around him and his household and all that he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his possessions are spread throughout the land" (vv. 9-10). God had set a hedge around Job, and He had blessed the work of his hands. In verse 11 Satan went on to say, "But stretch forth Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face."
"Jehovah said to Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your hand; only do not stretch forth your hand against him" (v. 12a). We should not think that God was caught by Satan, for Satan was caught by God to do something for Him—to strip Job for God. Satan, an evil angel, was willing to do what none of the good angels was willing to do, and he immediately accepted God's commission.
Satan's evil concept concerning God's dealing with His seeking people is based on his commercial principle of gain or loss. Satan is a business man, a merchant, and his thought is according to his commercial principle. He does not know that God's purpose in dealing with those who love Him, even in the way of loss, is that they may gain Him to the fullest extent, more than the loss of all that they have other than Him, that He might be expressed through them for the fulfillment of the purpose in His creation of man (Gen. 1:26).