1 This was the answer Job gave to Yahweh:
2 I know that you are all powerful;
no plan of yours can be thwart ed.
3b I spoke of things I did not understand,
too wonderful for me to know.
4 5 My ears had heard of you,
but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I retract all I have said,
and in dust and ashes I repent.
The end of Job’s poem
7 After Yahweh had spoken to Job, he turned to Eliphaz the Te manite, “I am angry with you and your two friends because you have not spoken of me rightly, as has my servant Job.
8 Now, take seven bulls and seven rams, go to my servant Job, offer a holocaust for yourselves and let him pray for you. I will accept his prayer and excuse your folly in not speaking of me properly as my servant Job has done.”
9 Then Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as Yah weh had ordered. Yahweh accepted Job’s intercession.
Here ends the traditional story of Job
10 After Job had prayed for his friends, Yahweh restored his fortunes, giving him twice as much as he had before.
11 All his brothers and sisters and his former friends came to his house and dined with him. They showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that Yahweh had brought to him. Each of them gave him a silver coin and a gold ring.
12 Yahweh blessed Job’s latter days much more than his earlier ones. He came to own fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she-donkeys.
13 He was also blessed with seven sons and three daughters.
14 The first daughter he named Dove, the second Cinnamon, and the third Bottle of Perfume.
15 Nowhere in the land was there found any woman who could compare in beauty with Job’s daughters. Their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.
16 Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation.
17 He died old and full of years.
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Comments Job, Chapter 42
• 42.1 Here we have the conclusion of the long dialogues in this book.
Now my eyes have seen you. Job’s questions about suffering and death have not been answered, but now we realize that it was not essential. God has responded. God has revealed himself and Job has begun to live as someone who has been miraculously freed from his loneliness. The words addressed by God to him seem reproachful, but Job feels better off with a thousand reproaches than with nothing.
What Job needed was not a revelation, since God gave him intelligence to investigate these human questions. What he lacked was to see God, and this is the great yearning of the entire Bible: “Show us your face and we will be saved” (Ps 80:8).
• Verses 3a and 4 which read, “You asked: Who obscures divine plans with ignorance? You said: Listen and I will speak and question you, and you must answer,” were probably added.
• 7. In the last paragraph (42:10-17) we have the conclusion of the popular story of the holy man Job, begun in 1:1–2:13 (see Introduction). Since he preserved his trust, it was rewarded in the end by the just God.
On the contrary, in vv. 7-9, we have a difficult merging between this submissive holy man Job and the other character who occupied most of the book, namely, the Job who argues with God. God prefers Job to his friends who consider them selves more religious because they cover up the scandals of existence and the obscurities of faith.
Job is the example of a Christian who courageously looks for an answer to today’s problems: my servant Job has spoken properly of me.