JOB 42
OPENS WITH...JOB'S REPENTANCE AND RESTORATION
Verses 1-3 tells us Job confesses his presumption and lack of knowledge.
“Then Job answered the LORD and said:
"I know that You can do everything,
And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
You asked, 'Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?'
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”
I know that You can do everything…
This wonderful statement from Job was obviously connected to the impressive display of the power and might of God over creation; but it was also connected TO THE COMFORT that the sense of the presence of God brought to Job. God indeed could do everything, including bring comfort and assurance to Job, even when Job still did not understand the origin or meaning of his crisis.
And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You…
The God who can master Behemoth and Leviathan (Job 40 and 41) can also accomplish every purpose in Job's life, including the mysterious meaning behind the twists and turns.
I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know…
Job said many sad and imprudent things, both in his agonized cry of Job 3 and in the bitter and contentious debate with his friends. At times he doubted the goodness of God and His righteous judgment in the world; at times he doubted if there was any good in this life or in the life beyond. Now Job has come full circle, back to a state of humble contentment with NOT knowing the answers to the questions occasioned by his crisis and his companions.
Job's thinking here is well expressed by one of the shortest psalms, Psalm 131:
LORD, my heart is not haughty,
Nor my eyes lofty.
Neither do I concern myself with great matters,
Nor with things too profound for me.
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
From this time forth and forever.
Verses 4-6 tells us Job repents before God.
“Listen, please, and let me speak; You said,
'I will question you, and you shall answer Me.'"
"I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,
But now my eye sees You.
Therefore I abhor myself,
And repent in dust and ashes."
Listen, please, and let me speak…
Before Job seemed to want to challenge God (Job 31:35-40) in a confrontational way. Now, after his wonderful revelation of God, He respectfully asked God for the right to speak.
I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You…
This reminds us that the most powerful aspect of Job's encounter with God. It was not primarily what God said; but God's simple, loving, powerful presence with Job that changed him MOST profoundly.
Seeing God - not with his literal eye, but in a way literally real - gave Job what he SO wanted: to know that God was WITH him in his crisis. This wonderful presence of God has humbled Job.
We should not assume that what Job knew of God was necessarily false; yet each fresh and deeper revelation of God has a brightness that makes previous experience of God seem rather pale. What he had just experienced was so real it made his previous experiences seem unreal.
Therefore I abhor myself…
It is important to understand EACH phrase of this statement of Job's. This would seem to be the normal conviction of sin that even a saint like Job senses in the presence of God; yet there is good evidence that Job, with this statement, was really formally retracting his previous statements made in ignorance.
I despise myself (Job 42:6) could be rendered 'I reject what I said.' Job could be expressing regret at his foolish words, uttered hastily and in ignorance.
And repent in dust and ashes…
It was right for Job to repent. He had done nothing to invite the crisis that came into his life; the reasons for that crisis were rooted in the contention between God and Satan as recorded in Job 1 and 2. Yet he did have to repent of his bad attitude after the crisis; both for excessively giving into despair in Job 3 and for his intemperate speech as he contended with his companions.
It is important to note that Job did NOT give into his friends and admit that they had been right all along. That simply was NOT true. The sins Job repented of here were both general sins, common to all men, which seemed all the darker in the presence of God yet were NOT the cause of the catastrophe that came into his life; and they were sins committed AFTER the catastrophe came.
1. Job repented of the terrible curse he had pronounced upon the day of his birth.
2. Job repented of his desire to die.
3. Job repented of his complaints against and challenges to God.
4. Job repented of his despair.
5. Job repented that his statements had been a "darkening of wisdom by words without knowledge"; that he spoke beyond his knowledge and ability to know.
One might say that these words of Job - words of humble repentance and submission before God, for sins that were greatly provoked, sins that come from the godly and not from the wicked - these words that contain no curse of God whatsoever - these words ended the contest between God and Satan, and demonstrated that the victory belonged to God AND to Job.
God's confidence in Job's faith was completely vindicated.
ANDERSEN gives us great food for thought..."Job is vindicated in a faith in God's goodness that has survived a terrible deprivation and, indeed, grown in scope, unsupported by Israel's historical creed or the mighty acts of God, unsupported by life in the covenant community, unsupported by cult institutions, unsupported by revealed knowledge from the prophets, unsupported by tradition, and contradicted by experience. Next to Jesus, Job must surely be the greatest believer in the whole Bible."
Simply put, "Without anger toward him, God allowed Job to suffer in order to humiliate the Accuser, Satan himself, and proved support to countless sufferers who would follow in Job's footsteps. This was now accomplished.
Verses 7-9 tells us Job's friends are rebuked; Job is vindicated
“And so it was, after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you. For I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly; because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has." So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the LORD commanded them; for the LORD had accepted Job.”
My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends…
God rebuked Job's three companions, addressing Eliphaz as their head (he was the first of the three to speak).
Curiously, Elihu is not addressed by God in this final chapter. Some people think and teach this is because Elihu was correct in what he said, and that he WAS indeed God's messenger to Job. Taking into account exactly what Elihu said, it is better to think that God did NOT answer him as a way of dismissing him altogether.
You have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has…
The friends of Job spoke many general principles that, in their WORLDY MANKIND setting, have great wisdom. The problem was that in Job's circumstance their principles of wisdom WERE FIRST NOT GOD’S WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE AT ALL AND SECONDLY, they did NOT apply to Job. They ALSO presented God as angry and judgmental against Job when He was not. This displeased God GREATLY.
HOW DO WE KNOW THIS?
It displeased God so much that He specifically repeated the charge (Job 42:8); He commanded them to sacrifice a burnt offering to make atonement for their sin; and He commanded them to humble themselves and ASK Job to pray for them. Letting them know they did not ever stop to pray or ask God anything. They thought they KNEW GOD, when they did NOT KNOW HIM AT ALL...AND NO WHERE NEAR AS HIS FAITHFUL SERVANT JOB DID. GOD WOULD HEAR JOB’S PRAYERS OF ATONEMENT FOR THEM, BUT HE WOULD NOT HEAR THEIRS.
We can imagine that they were quite surprised by this. They no doubt thought that God was in agreement with them all along and since God did not instantly heal and restore Job, so they felt they were right and continued to warn, predict, and ask for God to bring more curses upon Job.
AND WE SEE AND UNDERSTAND THAT God's rebuke of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar was at the same time an explicit vindication of Job. It was true that in his frustration, stubbornness, and misery Job said things that he had to repent of. Yet God could still say of him, "as My servant Job has," putting forth Job as an example of one who spoke what is right.
So Eliphaz … Bildad … and Zophar … went and did as the LORD commanded them; for the LORD had accepted Job…
The friends of Job were accepted for Job's sake, because the LORD had accepted Job. God made Job a mediator to his friends. This must have been a humbling and instructive experience for THESE SELF-CENTERED, EGOCENTRIC, WORLDLY WISE friends, and a happy and healing experience for Job.
SPURGEON says it well, "Job was permitted to take a noble revenge, I am sure the only one he desired, when he became the means of bringing them back to God. God would not hear them, he said, for they had spoken so wrongly of his servant Job, and now Job is set to be a mediator, or intercessor on their behalf: thus was the contempt poured upon the patriarch turned into honor.”
Verses 10-11 tells us Job is blessed and received by his friends again.
“And the LORD restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been his acquaintances before, came to him and ate food with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversity that the LORD had brought upon him. Each one gave him a piece of silver and each a ring of gold.”
And the LORD restored Job's losses when he prayed for his friends…
God was good enough to restore Job's wealth to him, even though Job never asked for this. Job's agony was always more rooted in the more spiritual aspects of his crisis, much more than the material. Yet once the spiritual was resolved, God restored the material.
As the margin in the New King James Version notes, this can also be translated, and the LORD turned the captivity of Job. This is a suggestive phrase; that the act of praying for his friends and restoring his relationship with them in a sense freed Job from literal abandoned captivity and of mind captivity because of the mean, hurtful things said and done to the innocent Job by his wife, family, and friends, and all the people he has spent his life trying to help, defend, and counsel.
It does not say that God turned the poverty of Job, nor the health of Job, nor his friendships; rather, literally, He turned the captivity of Job. A man may be poor, sick, and friendless without being captive. Yet until Job had a revelation of God; until he humbled himself before God; until he brought atonement to his friends and prayed for them, he was still in captivity in his heart too.
We notice this happened AFTER Job prayed for his friends). It would have been a weak restoration if Job's relationship with Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar remained as contentious and bitter as it was during Job’s crisis.
Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been his acquaintances before, came to him and ate food with him in his house…
Job was once an outcast even from his own family (as described in Job 19:13-14). Now these relationships were restored.
It is interesting to notice that they NOW consoled him and NOW comforted him for all the adversity and abandonment they had GIVEN Job, and this was AFTER his losses were restored, his captivity OF HURT FROM THEM WAS ALSO was released.
Verses 12-17 tells us The happy end to the story of Job.
“Now the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first Jemimah, the name of the second Keziah, and the name of the third Keren-Happuch. 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. After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations. So Job died, old and full of days.”
Now the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning…
In the beginning of the story of Job we find a blessed and godly man; at the end of the Book of Job we find a man more blessed and more godly. In the end, all the attacks of Satan served to make Job a MORE blessed and A MORE godly man.
We can also see, as Mason suggests, this chapter as an example of the work of revival.
- God's people are convicted of their sin (I abhor myself)
- God's people are broken and repentant (repent in dust and ashes)
- God speaks to hard hearts and they listen (the LORD said to Eliphaz)
- God's people pray for others and God answers (Job shall pray for you)
- God's people obey God (Eliphaz … Bildad … and Zophar … went and did as the Lord commanded them)
- God's people are united and jubilant (all his brothers, all his sisters … came to him and ate food with him in his house)
- God's people are blessed (the LORD blessed)
He also had seven sons and three daughters…
Nothing could replace the children Job so tragically lost in Job 1; yet these ten children were of true consolation. It also is some evidence that Job's relationship with his wife was restored to goodness as before.
The daughters of Job were also uniquely blessed, noted as being beautiful, and having an inheritance among their brothers. There was, no doubt, some connection between Job's godly conduct as a family man (Job 31:1-4; 31:9-12) and this blessing on his daughters.
The names of the daughters of Job are of some interest.
- Jemimah: "Turtledove" or "Day-bright."
- Keziah: "Cinnamon" or "Cassia," a fragrant scent.
- Keren-Happuch: "A Jar of Eye Paint" or "Horn of Beauty"; the idea was that she was so beautiful that she needed no cosmetics.
Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations. Job died, old and full of days:
Job's life ended long and blessed. He was well rewarded as a warrior who won a great battle for God's glory.
CLARKE says, “The greatest, the most important purposes were accomplished by this trial. Job became a much better man than he ever was before; the dispensations of God's providence were illustrated and justified; Satan's devices unmasked; patience crowned and rewarded; and the church of God greatly enriched by having bequeathed to it the vast treasury of divine truth which is found in the BOOK OF JOB."
SPURGEON says it well for us all, "We are not all like Job, but we all have Job's God. Though we have neither risen to Job's wealth, nor will, probably, ever sink to Job's poverty, yet there is the same God above us if we be high, and the same God with his everlasting arms beneath us if we be brought low; and what the Lord did for Job he will do for us, not precisely in the same form, but in the same spirit, and with like design."
NOW DURING THE STUDY OF JOB...I HAVE HAD SEVERAL EMAILS ASKING ME WHY? WHY DID GOD CHALLENGE SATAN, WHY DID GOD POINT OUT JOB, PUT HIM IN THE CROSSHAIRS OF SATAN, AND AT WHAT WE SEE AS AT JOB’S DETRIMENT, PAIN, AND EXPENSE?
SO HERE IS WHAT GOD SHOWS US AND TEACHES US ALL IN JOB, JUST AS HE DOES THROUGH THE ENTIRE BIBLE.
God never told JOB why. God never explained Himself; God never gave Job any justification or any motivation for why.
ALMIGHTY GOD as Sovereign has the right to do whatever He wants to do. And listen to this, and to be TRUSTED for it and to be HONORED for it.
Whatever suspicions may arise in fallen minds, God does NOT defend himself, God does NOT justify himself, He simply affirms His sovereign right to be trusted and to be honored.
God will NEVER place himself under human judgment. And He has NO obligation to explain anything to us at all. So back up and approach the problem this way. Aren't you glad that you know at least as much as you know?
Because God was under no obligation to even tell us that. Now LET’S OVERVIEW THE BOOK OF JOB.
Everything was happening to Job, he lost everything, he lost all his animals and then he lost his family and then he lost his health. And he was reduced to nothing except his wife and himself in a state of dire physical condition. And the whole reason Job was being blasted with all of this at the hands of Satan was because God and Satan were in a contest.
And God was making A POINT to Satan. God was PROVING to Satan that Satan could NOT EVER...NOT EVER break someone's faith in God no matter what Satan and his demons did to that person.
Satan believed that NONE of God's followers, God's children would be faithful UNLESS God prospered them and so God makes the point that their faithfulness to ME is NOT built on prosperity, it's built on the divine gift of faith which is eternal. And so God let Satan bombard Job to prove that TRUE SAVING FAITH can NOT be broken.
WE KNOW THIS...GOD TOLD US...But Job does NOT know that. He does NOT know why it's happening. Then his friends gather around him and they do NOT know about the contest between God and Satan. They do NOT know anything about that. So they with their sort of simple theology, assumed that Job's getting bombed because he's sinning.
And Job's running an inventory of his life while he's listening to these poor counselors and they're giving him all this stuff about you must be sinning, Job keeps saying, "I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it."
Job reaches a point where he just wants an answer about why this is happening. So Job asks God WHY?!?!
In other words, I'm at the point now where I just need to hear from God where is he? I have some questions to ask. I really need some answers. And if I could just know.
Finally in Chapter 38, God does answer from the whirlwind. God says you've all got it wrong. Now gird up your loins like a man. Quit whining. And I will ask you and you instruct me. God turns the tables and he says, "Okay, Job, you have questions of me, I have questions of you. God questions Job about creation, nature, weather..animals...seasons, the universe...WHERE WERE YOU JOB?
Answer, "You were nowhere.
In other words, Job do you think you could grasp these matters of a sovereign God and why sovereign God does what he does?
God never tells Job anything about his problems. He never tells him any reason why they happen. He gives them no answer; He gives JOB no justification for what has happened. And again this is an affirmation that God is absolutely sovereign, that we do NOT need to know ALL the reasons why God does what he does, but we DO NEED to TRUST him and HONOR him.
Job says, "I'm sorry I ever asked. I repent. You just recited to me that you are the sovereign God. That you created everything. That you control everything and it's not for me to know all the reasons why."
"You have sinned in questioning My wisdom, My goodness, My holiness and My purpose." You can ask questions Job. You can ask questions up to one point and that is the point where you would begin to endite God. Then you've crossed the line.
Ezekiel 18:25 says; "yet you say the way of the Lord is not right. Hear now oh house of Israel, is my way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right?”
Similar treatment of this same thing in the Romans 3:4, "let every man be found a liar, let God be found true." God is true, God is right, though everyone in the world is a liar.
Romans 9:14, "What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be." There is no injustice with God. There is no wrong with God.
Don't you know God said, "I'll have mercy on whom I have mercy? I'll have compassion on whom I'll have compassion?" God can do essentially exactly what he wants to do. HE IS not answerable to us.
God has not chosen to reveal ALL. All we know is what we know from The Bible. And in the end, God is to be trusted and God is to be honored. So Romans confirms what we learn in the case of Job and elsewhere in Scripture. And it's this.
FIRST of all we have no right to complain against God. And when we do we expose ourselves to the sin of disobedience because we are to trust him to do right in every situation.
SECOND, God is under no obligation to give us a humanly intellectually satisfying answer for all of our questions including the question of why God allowed evil.
THIRD God is sovereign. And that settles every issue. He can do absolutely what he chooses to do and it will always be right. Add to that the fact that God's word is always true and always reliable and you can know this, that whatever we can know is revealed accurately on the pages of Scripture.
One other Scripture that puts this SAME PERSPECTIVE OF JOB, IS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT AS WELL IN Hebrews 11. We have already studied Hebrews, but you REMEMBER the list of people who BY FAITH did this by faith, by faith by faith. And you go down toward the end of the Chapter and then you have these people going through one horrible list of suffering. And ALL these people are looking for a heavenly city. And you can understand that as they were going through this, there would always be the temptation to say, "Why God, why did this happen to me? Why does this happen to our family? What is going on here? What is the deal."
And God never answers their question during their life on earth. But God HONORS them for their what? THEIR FAITH IN HIM.
Their unwavering faith. And it is the point of JOB AS WELL, that Job’s faith prevailed in the midst of inexplicable and very often unrelieved suffering. In the end, you may NOT get an answer about why you suffer or why things are the way they are or even the big picture, why God allows evil, but you will be told to TRUST God and God will honor that faith and bless you for it.
So all that to say is this. When it comes to the problem of evil, we bow in faith to our glorious God. We accept gratefully what He HAS revealed because it was best for us to know and the rest, what is unknowable, is not understood, and what is not explained...WE CAN HAVE FAITH IN OUR GOD. TRUST HIM TO ALWAYS DO RIGHT FOR US AND WE CAN HAVE THE PEACE KNOWING THAT GOD DOES KNOW ALL THINGS AND CONTROLS ALL THINGS. AND HE LOVES AND CARES FOR HIS OWN. AND JESUS WILL HONOR OUR FAITH IN HIM!