Lenten Study Job Ch 42
Chapter 41 marks the end of Job’s trials and tribulations. Job apologizes, asks for forgiveness, and repents. God forgives him, vindicates Job, and provides a path forward for everyone involved. In the end, Job has more than he lost, and I hope each of us can say the same for having spent this time reading through the Book of Job this Lenten season.
"There was a man in the land of Uz" by andrevanb is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.Caption
1 Then Job answered the LORD and said,
2 “I know that You can do all things And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
Job 42:1-2 (NASB)
I can just see Job’s shoulders slump in resignation. He has been through so much. He has been looking for answers for so long. He has been so certain he is undeserving of what has happened to him, and here comes God to respond. God hasn’t said, “Oh, yeah, I got it wrong. Sorry, my bad.” Nope. God has been offended that Job didn’t trust Him, that Job didn’t think He knew what He was doing, or that God wasn’t sovereign. Think about what that means from Job’s perspective. It means everything Job went through was for a reason and was supposed to happen to him, and Job cannot figure out what that reason was.
3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ “Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”
Job 42:3 (NASB)
This is Job admitting he was wrong. He opens by admitting he was making statements without all the information. We know this because Job didn’t have all the information, and he now realizes it. He doesn’t know what pieces he’s missing, but he knows he is missing something. That second sentence is Job admitting he spoke on subjects he didn’t fully grasp because he didn’t have all the information and that only God knows everything about the situation Job is in.
4 ‘Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me.’
5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You;
6 Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42:4-6 (NASB)
This is a prayer of repentance and forgiveness. Before now, Job’s only first-hand experience with God was in answered prayers and direction given in signs to be discerned or interpreted through dreams. Now, Job has first-hand experience with God, and he is sorry, apologizing for his arrogance.
7 It came about after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.
Job 42:7 (NASB)
This one sentence from God is vindication for Job with his friends. Yes, Job was speaking from pride about how righteous he was, but Job always mentioned that God was sovereign, almighty, and in charge in all his words. Job always spoke of how important God’s ways were and did everything he could to keep God’s ways. The three friends only accused Job of having some secret sin; though they acknowledged God’s ways as being what were broken, they did not confirm that from what they could see, Job did what he was supposed to do.
8 “Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves, and My servant Job will pray for you. For I will accept him so that I may not do with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.”
Job 42:8 (NASB)
“Go say you’re sorry and ask him to forgive you.” Notice that God is telling these three men to go ask Job to pray to Him so He can forgive them. God is right there. He could forgive them right there, but He doesn’t. Why? Because the three men might not be obedient to what God has said, and if they don’t do what God said to do, He won’t forgive them. They have wronged their friend and must make it right with Job, AND Job must then be satisfied enough with their actions that he is moved to pray to God to ask Him to forgive them. It is an interesting dynamic of how divine forgiveness works. We can’t just say the words. We have to mean it, and we have to demonstrate we mean it so well that the person we are asking for forgiveness from is moved to ask God to forgive us. How often have our apologies reached this level, I wonder?
9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job.
Job 42:9 (NASB)
And here we discover why God wanted them to do what He asked them to do. “…and the LORD accepted Job.” These three men would not have apologized to Job if he wasn’t as righteous as he had claimed. The three friends had to believe Job was not only worthy of the sacrifice they were to make but also righteous enough in God’s eyes to seek and gain their forgiveness from God. If they didn’t believe that God would not have taken Job back. But they did, and God did.
10 The LORD restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends, and the LORD increased all that Job had twofold.
Job 42:10 (NASB)
Job went through all that he went through, and with this one verse, everything is back. Why? Job asked God, no he implored God, he begged God to fix things; and he was righteous so God could have, but He didn’t. Why what puts God over the edge that moves Him to restore all that was lost to Job? “…when he prayed for his friends….” Job asked for divine forgiveness for his friends, and then God restored his life.
11 Then all his brothers and all his sisters and all who had known him before came to him, and they ate bread with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversities that the LORD had brought on him. And each one gave him one piece of money, and each a ring of gold.
Job 42:11 (NASB)
A lot is going on here. While Job is going through his troubles, no one is hanging out with him. No one is standing with him, saying, “This is a good guy we should support.” No one is trying to help him get through things. They shun him as a pariah, as someone wicked and deserving of what the Lord is doing to him. It isn’t until his three friends ask his forgiveness, stand with him, and pray with him, and then Job prays to God that everyone else comes to support him. Job has been going through this for a while, and it isn’t until the end of his trials that his three friends show up, but only to criticize and point fingers, not to support him.
12 The LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had 14,000 sheep and 6,000 camels and 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 female donkeys.
13 He had seven sons and three daughters.
Job 42:12-13 (NASB)
Yes, I get that the Lord blessed the latter days more than the beginning days, but. But, but, but. I struggle with the idea that all of Job’s first children died to get here. I also understand this day was a different time in which children frequently perished for a wide variety of reasons. People had big families because you needed a lot of children for a lot of reasons, survival being the main one. Ancient agriculture took a lot of hard work to accomplish on a scale needed to keep people alive. More hands meant more work done which meant more food. More food meant an easier life.
14 He named the first Jemimah, and the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch.
Job 42:14 (NASB)
It is interesting that here in Job, we have the names of Job’s daughters, but we do not have the names of Job’s seven sons.
Some contend the Bible is misogynistic in that it was written mostly by patriarchal men in a time when men ran and owned everything. Let’s examine that idea for just a moment. In the previous paragraph, I mentioned that survival centered around having a lot of children to help with agriculture and basic survival in general. Those arguing for a patriarchal bent to scripture because men kept women like possessions are missing a key point here.
As a man, by myself, I can hunt and provide for myself nearly indefinitely. I can work, earn enough food to keep me alive, or kill enough prey to feed myself over the course of my life. This requires the single man to move around in a nomadic life, following the prey wherever it goes. However, winter time is a difficult time to find enough prey animals to survive, so growing food is the simplest and most reliable way to store up enough food to make it through the winter. That requires building a house in a location that has good soil and enough water to grow things, and this is where things get interesting.
To tend to this new home, there aren’t enough hours in the day. There isn’t enough work I can do on my own to farm and build a house, repair a house, maintain a house, and all the things that go with life in one spot. I need help.
As a young man, I can either stay with my family or I can join another family. In either case, I need to find an established group that already has the security I’m looking for that can help me build up my reserves until I am ready to branch out on my own. How does this relate to the Bible not being a bastion of patriarchy? Here you go.
Safety and security attract other people. Everyone wants to be safe and secure first and foremost. A young man who is capable of providing for himself with extra for someone else attracts a young woman. That young woman is the most important thing in biblical times beyond any other person, place, or thing. She is the most important because life comes from her. From the man’s perspective, his safety and security, longevity, and very life are tied up in that woman. Because of that, he must protect her as the most valuable, most life-giving thing in his world. That word “thing” is not intended to be read as “material possession,” though those who wish to find fault will undoubtedly find fault with it. Why should that word not be found fault with? Because we can swap out the genders there and read it as “As a young woman, she can either stay with her family or can join with another…” etc.
The point is that when a man and a woman come together, both gain safety and security from having the other around. When two people come together, a division of labor is made. In ancient times that division of labor revolved around the strengths and weaknesses of the individual. I will not belabor the point to try and expound on all the ways men and women are different. We will just say that here and move on. Men and women are different, physically and mentally, different. This is by His design for His purposes, and it was pronounced good at creation. Women were revered as the center of survival, the lynchpin of society, the reason for being. Rich and powerful men who became soft in their safety and security because of the wealth and power forget that. It bears remembering.
15 In all the land no women were found so fair as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers.
Job 42:15 (NASB)
It is again interesting that we have a complimentary passage about Job’s daughters and nothing about the sons. Note also that Job elevated these three women to have a portion of his wealth as an inheritance rather than a dowery. The inheritance is in her control. The dowery is in the control of the new husband.
16 After this, Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons and his grandsons, four generations.
17 And Job died, an old man and full of days.
Job 42:16-17 (NASB)
I wonder what Job thought about for those 140 years? Did he dwell on what he lost or revel in what he gained? Did he let the grief tinge his joy? Did he forget or remember? It is my hope that he never forgot, that there was always a small space of some room he saw daily where he kept remembrances of those he’d lost. Not to keep his grief alive but to bring a smile to his face as he remembered the good times those people brought to his life. I’m sure there would be moments of sadness, but those would grow fewer and fewer as the years drew on. I would hope that in his new life, he would see echoes of the old one and a realization that perhaps, just maybe, this is where that was going anyway, and now he was there.
The one thing I struggle with most about the Book of Job is this. We never get closure on what happened with the whole reason God put Job through this in the first place. That bothers me. We don’t see Satan grumbling and angry that he failed to draw Job away from God. We never see the satisfied little knowing smile on God’s face as the Devil sulks away, trying to figure out why he couldn’t rip God’s child from Him.
I think that scene isn’t written about for two reasons. First, we already know this is what happens at the beginning. When God says, “have you considered my servant Job?” for the first time, we already know that God knows how this will end, and we play that ending through in our minds. We might forget about it as the other forty-odd chapters unfold as we read, but it’s still there in the back of our minds.
The second reason is this. It’s a sinful desire to want to see and feel the smug satisfaction of being right, watching the failure of someone else. That’s really what’s at the core of my unhappiness for not getting the satisfaction of seeing Satan fail. Pride. I want to be right, and not only that, but I want to see the other person here endure the consequences of being wrong as I proudly stand over them being right. I should not want that as much as I do.
No one wants to go through what Job went through. I think this book of the Bible is avoided because reading about his hardships somehow makes us worry we might draw some of that onto ourselves. However, I think we all should want to be like Job. In that, I mean we all should want to have as unshakable certainty in God that we stick as closely to our understanding of His ways as Job did to the point that we can stand before a jury of our peers and emphatically state we are righteous. I don’t think we should walk around in life with an “I’m righteous” chip on our shoulder because that isn’t doing it like Job. I do think that we should study His Word as hard as Job did, work to align our lives as closely with His Word as Job did, and be willing to go as far as Job did, standing up for His Word as Job did. I just don’t want to be tested by God as Job was, and I pray none of you are either.
May God bless and keep you in His care, safe from harm and where evil brings that harm anyway may He walk with you through it, providing you with His strength. Amen.