The Verdict and the Restoration
7 It was so, that after Yahweh had spoken these words to Job, Yahweh said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has. 8 Now therefore, take to yourselves seven bulls 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 I will accept him, that I not deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.” 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what Yahweh commanded them, and Yahweh accepted Job. 10 Yahweh restored Job’s prosperity when he prayed for his friends. Yahweh gave Job twice as much as he had before. 11 Then all his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been of his acquaintance before, came to him and ate bread with him in his house. They comforted him, and consoled him concerning all the evil that Yahweh had brought on him. Everyone also gave him a piece of money, and everyone a ring of gold. 12 So Yahweh blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand female donkeys. 13 He had also seven sons and three daughters. 14 He called the name of the first, Jemimah; and the name of the second, Keziah; and the name of the third, Keren Happuch. 15 In all the land were no women found so beautiful as the daughters of Job. Their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. 16 After this Job lived one hundred forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, to four generations. 17 So Job died, being old and full of days.
God rejects the men who defended him and accepts the man who accused him, and the restoration comes after Job prays for his friends.
The verdict is delivered to Eliphaz and it is not softened. My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has Job 42:7.
The men who defended God's justice for twenty-nine chapters are told they misrepresented him. The man who called God his adversary and accused him of persecution Job 16:9 Job 30:21 is the one who spoke rightly.
That should not be turned into a licence for saying anything. Job was corrected two verses earlier for speaking beyond his knowledge. What distinguishes him is that he spoke to God rather than about him, and told the truth as he had it rather than the answer that would keep the system intact. The friends were careful, orthodox, and false.
God calls him my servant Job four times in two verses Job 42:7–8 — the phrase he used of him in the councils, before any of this began, and never once in between.
The remedy prescribed is exact and humiliating. Seven bulls and seven rams, and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept him Job 42:8. The three men who came to correct him must go to him with their offerings and be prayed for by the man they condemned. The one they judged a criminal is made their priest.
And then the timing, which is the most important detail in the epilogue: Yahweh restored Job's prosperity when he prayed for his friends Job 42:10.
Not when he repented, and not because he had been righteous. The turn comes at the moment he intercedes for the men who wronged him. His restoration is attached to an act of forgiveness, so the last thing the book records him doing for others is the thing he had done in chapter 1 — offering for people who needed it.
The relatives arrive afterward, with money and gold rings, to comfort him concerning all the evil that Yahweh had brought on him Job 42:11. They come once it is safe. The book records their gifts without comment.
The livestock is doubled Job 42:12. The children are not: seven sons and three daughters again, the same number as before Job 42:13. Ten more children do not replace ten children, and the arithmetic of the epilogue quietly refuses to pretend they do.
The daughters are named and the sons are not — Jemimah, Keziah, Keren Happuch — and they are given an inheritance among their brothers Job 42:14–15, which was not the custom. A man who had swept an oath clean of any wrong done to the powerless ends by settling property on his daughters.
He dies old and full of days Job 42:17, having seen four generations. And the question asked in the ninth verse of the book — whether anyone fears God for nothing — was answered years earlier, on an ash heap, by a man who never found out that it had been asked.
settled What this mark means