CHAPTER 42

(1520 B.C.)

JOBS REPLY

¹Then Job answered the LORD, and said,

²I know that You can do everything, and that no thought can be withheld from You (from the Lords questions to Job, he knows that God is Omnipotent [all-powerful], as well as Omniscient [all-knowing]).

³Who is he who hides counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not (even though it seems that God did not directly accuse Job of such, still, after Job saw and heard the Lord, he realized how woeful that his knowledge of God actually was).

⁴Hear, I beseech You, and I will speak: I will demand of You, and declare You unto me (many times in the last few months, Job had longed for this opportunity to speak to God; now the opportunity presents itself; what he will say after seeing the Lord will not be nearly what he thought he would say; he had spoken of how he would demand of God, but now he falls silent, and rightly so).

⁵I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees You (from this we must believe that God made a visible appearance to Job, and that he was able to see His bodily shape; as well, we must conclude that God is a literal Person with a Spirit Body).

⁶Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. (In effect, Job had previously reported that he had not abhorred himself, but, on the contrary, thought well of himself and had held fast to his moral excellency. The discovery of the deep corruption of the heart is the most painful and humbling that a man can make.

So the Patriarch had to crucify all his goodness as truly as all his badness, and sit in wood ashes as a public confession that he merited death because of his sin-defiled nature.

This moral principle governs the Salvation of the sinner as well as the Sanctification of the Saint.)

JOB PRAYS FOR HIS FRIENDS

⁷And it was so, that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends (the Lord completely ignores Elihu): for you have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has. (We will find that even though the Lord has spoken well of Job, still, everyone had to change except God! This is a crowning Truth that all must understand and believe. It is not God Who needs to change; we do.)

⁸Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a Burnt Offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that you have not spoken of Me the thing which is right, like My servant Job. (The answer to Jobs three friends was Calvary, as Calvary is the answer to all. The number seven speaks of the perfect Offering of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary by the offering of Himself.)

⁹So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did according as the LORD commanded them: the LORD also accepted Job (the Lord accepted the intercession of Job on behalf of his three friends; Job is thus a Type of Christ, not merely in his sufferings, but also in his mediatorial character).

¹⁰And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends (Job had to humble himself and pray for God to bless these three chieftains who had so despitefully used him and persecuted him, and the three princes themselves had to confess themselves worthy of death and seek forgiveness from God through the Precious Blood of Christ, as foreshadowed in Verse 8, and acceptance before God in the Person of Christ, as typified in Verse 9): also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before (added to all that had been Jobs to the double; thus this Book sets off the action of God in leading His Children into a higher Christian experience; the subject of this Book is not how God justifies a sinner so much as it is how God sanctifies a Saint; hence, none but a good man such as Job could have been chosen for the process or profited by it).

¹¹Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they who had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him (had allowed to be brought upon him): every man also gave him a piece of money, and everyone an earring of gold (all of those who had previously spoken so harshly of him will change their minds now that God has appeared; public opinion is fickle and always according to appearances and circumstances; now they would attempt to atone for their judgmental attitudes by giving Job an offering).

¹²So the LORD blessed the latter end 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 she asses. (All goodness and beauty which men recognize in themselves and in others must be nailed in death to the Cross, and the only Man Who is to live must be the risen Man, Christ Jesus.

True self-abhorrence comes not from self-examination, but in looking away from self to Jesus, the Perfecter, as well as the Author of Faith. Job was very much satisfied with himself until he saw God. Self is very enticing to man, especially religious self, and self-examination is an interesting occupation and, accordingly, it is found very difficult to learn the lesson to crucify it, and to find that victory is enjoyed only when self is ignored and Christ adored Williams.)

¹³He had also seven sons and three daughters (the Lord replaced what he had lost, and much, much more!).

¹⁴And he called the name of the first, Jemima; and the name of the second, Kezia; and the name of the third, Keren-happuch.

¹⁵And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren.

¹⁶After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons sons, even four generations. (It has been concluded from this statement, combined with that at the close of Verse 10, that Job was exactly seventy years of age when his calamities fell upon him. That being the case, Job would have lived to the age of 210.)

¹⁷So Job died, being old and full of days. (In effect, the Book of Job reveals the death of self, the risen life, the school of God, the emptiness of the world, the ugliness of self-righteousness and, above all, the fullness of Christ.)