Job 42King James Version
Job answers. 'I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.' He repents in dust and ashes. God rebukes the three friends for not speaking of him the thing that is right, as Job has. They must bring offerings and ask Job to pray for them. Then God restores Job's fortunes double. New sons, new daughters, new flocks. He dies old and full of days. The book ends in a kind of hush.
Job responds: I know you can do everything and no purpose can be stopped. I had heard of you by report; now I have seen you. I repent. God then speaks to the three friends: they have not spoken rightly as Job has. They must sacrifice and have Job pray for them. God restores Job's fortunes, giving him twice what he had before. New children are born, the most beautiful daughters in the land. Job lives 140 more years and sees four generations.
Job's integrity is vindicated. The friends are rebuked. The man who argued with God honestly is the one God calls his servant who spoke rightly. And restoration comes, not as reward but as the last word of a God who was never absent.
5: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee." The turning point of Job's spiritual journey: secondhand theology becomes direct encounter. This is what the whirlwind accomplished.
Job lives 140 more years, a near-patriarchal lifespan suggesting proximity to the earliest biblical era. He dies old and full of days, the phrase also used for Abraham and Isaac. The daughters' names, Jemimah, Keziah, and Keren-happuch, are fragrant and beautiful names, doves and cassia and eye-paint. After everything, there is beauty.
Job speaks his final words. God addresses Eliphaz and commands sacrifice. The three friends must be prayed for by Job, the man they accused. Job's brothers, sisters, and former acquaintances return. Job's wife bore new children. Ten new children, seven sons and three daughters, and the daughters are named, which is unusual and significant.
God's rebuke of the friends is explicit: they did not speak rightly of God as Job did. Job's honest protest was more acceptable to God than the friends' orthodox comfort. This is the book's final theological verdict. The restoration is not presented as reward for compliance; the earlier Job who lost everything was equally blameless.
This chapter is both satisfying and incomplete. The new children do not replace the ones who died. The restoration does not explain why it happened the way it did. Job lived, and lived well, and saw four generations. That is real. The grief was also real. The book holds both.
1Then Job answered the LORD, and said,
2I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.
3Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.
4Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
5I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
6Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
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 thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.
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 ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job.
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.
10And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.
11Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that 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: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold.
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.
13He had also seven sons and three daughters.
14And he called the name of the first, Jemima; and the name of the second, Kezia; and the name of the third, Kerenhappuch.
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.
17So Job died, being old and full of days.