Job Repents and the Lord Blesses His Latter Days More Than His Beginning

Continuing a Bible study of Job:

(Job 42:1) Then Job answered the LORD, and said, (2) "I know that You can do everything, and that no thought can be withheld from You. (3) Who is he who hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know."

Job acknowledges that God is all-powerful and has unlimited dominion.  "No thought can be withheld from You" could mean there are no secret thoughts from God, or it might mean that there is no thought of God's that He can't bring to pass.  Job quotes what God had asked about him, and admits that he spoke about things he did not understand.

(4) "Hear, I beseech you, and I will speak; I will demand of you, and you will declare to me."

The NKJV translators added the words "you said" to the second part of verse 4.  I'm not a fan of the newer translations of the Bible and now might be a good time to link to my article on why I trust KJV to be the most accurate:  "Which Version of the Truth Will You Use?"

Job may very well be quoting God, as he seemed to do in verse 3.  As John Wesley put it, "The words which God had uttered to Job by way of challenge, Job returns to him in way of submission."  It is also possible, if anything is being quoted, that Job is referring to his own request to speak directly to God and have Him answer him.  Maybe it's not a quote at all, but Job requesting the Lord hear his humble confession.  "I beseech you" is a humble "I beg of you".  "Demand" is probably not the best sense of the original word, "shaal".  I believe the better sense is one of the word's other definitions, "to ask (as a favor), beg".  So again, "I beg of you to hear me and then You will set me straight."

(5) "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. (6) Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

Up to now, Job only knew God through tradition and from what he had heard and had been taught, and it was therefore imperfect information, but now having this personal contact with God, he sees his Lord much more clearly, and humbles himself before Him and repents of his sins.  There is much discussion among Biblical scholars as to whether or not Job actually saw God with his eyes.  God told Moses in Exodus 33:20, "for there shall no man see me, and live."  I believe God could take on any form He wanted and could have been visible to Job, but we really only have Job's words that now his eyes saw God, and clearly that "seeing" could mean "understanding", as when Jesus later spoke of having eyes and not seeing.  The only thing we know for fact about Job's contact with God is that God spoke to him out of a whirlwind.

(7) And so it was, that after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has. (8) Therefore take unto you now seven bulls and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job will pray for you. For I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly, in that you have not spoken of Me what is right, like My servant Job."

It is very interesting when you think about all that Job and his three friends had said about God.  The friends had said many right things about God, and Job had said many wrong things, but God accepted Job, and not his friends.  Only through sacrifice and Job's praying for them, would God accept them.  Two things come to mind.  God judges the heart of men which He saw clearly all along, even if we didn't.  Immediately after God spoke, Job was overwhelmed by the conviction of guilt and repented.  There is no indication that his friends felt any differently after hearing the words of God.  Albert Barnes points out that if the matter had been left at verse 6 with Job abhorring himself and repenting in dust and ashes, the impression would have been that it was Job totally in error, and his friends were justified.  The second and perhaps most important point is that Job's friends judged Job himself.  It may not be that they said anything terribly wrong about God, but they presumed to judge Job's heart, and that is something we are commanded not to do.  We may judge actions, and are in fact told to judge fruit, but there were no evil actions of Job's for his friends to condemn.  They just assumed that he must have acted evilly if all these afflictions had come upon him.  It must be noted that God did not mention Elihu because he dealt more mercifully and truthfully with Job, not condemning him personally, but only rebuking his sinful expressions.

(9) So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the LORD commanded them, the LORD also accepted Job. (10) And the LORD turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends. Indeed, also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.

When they obeyed the Lord and sacrificed to Him and had Job pray for them, the Lord accepted Job's friends, as He did Job when Job also obeyed by praying over his friends and offering their sacrifice to the Lord.  The Lord then reversed Job's situation, giving him twice as much as he had before.

(11) Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been his acquaintances before, came there to him and ate food with him in his house; and they bemoaned him and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him; every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold. (12) So the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning, for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand female donkeys.

The Lord blessed Job with more possessions than he had had in his former days, using all the people in Job's circle and having them bring money and gold to him.

(13) He also had seven sons and three daughters. (14) And he called the name of the first Jemima, the name of the second Kezia, and the name of the third Keren-Happuch. (15) In all the land were found no women so beautiful as the daughters of Job, and their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers.

Job was also blessed with more children, and his daughters were the most beautiful women in the world.  In Job's day, it would have been uncommon for daughters to receive an inheritance when there were sons, but Job showed no partiality to his sons.  Dr. John Gill points out that this is a beautiful picture of Christ, with whom "there is neither male nor female, no difference between them, but being all children, they are heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, and equally partake of the same inheritance with the saints in light."

(16) After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his sons and his sons' sons, even four generations. (17) So Job died, old and full of days.

Job lived an additional 140 years, seeing his children's children, and even his grandchildren's children, and so it was a full and blessed life.