Restoration – Job 42:7-17

HGTV (Home and Garden Television) has had great success with shows about home restorations. Their latest, Home Town, follows the restoration work of Erin and Ben Napier who live and work in Laurel, Mississippi. They serve people who are wanting a home in Laurel, showing them homes to buy and how they will renovate them. Who doesn’t love a good restoration?

Job is set for a restoration, also, and this from the Lord.

After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For 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 what the LORD had told them, and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer.

And the LORD restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold.

And the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning. And he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. He had also seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first daughter Jemimah, and the name of the second Keziah, and the name of the third Keren-happuch. And in all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters. And their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. And after this Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, four generations. And Job died, an old man, and full of days. (Job 42:7-17)

Yahweh confirms Job’s integrity to his friends and, though He is angry with Job’s friends, God offers them a way to receive forgiveness through sacrifice and Job’s intercession on their behalf.  They are humbled, but they are compliant.  Had they ever heard God speak this clearly to them?  Was the young man Elihu even considered in this situation?  How did he take this conclusion?  Did he feel ignored by God or was he happy to be ignored?

Yahweh restored Job’s prosperity when he prayed for his friends, restored it twofold. In part God used Job’s family in this restorative process as they provided comfort that Job, who was still grieving, needed. We’re not told that Yahweh forgave Job, though certainly He did, not for anything Job had done to merit suffering, but for his arrogant response to the suffering God allowed in his life. Yahweh corrected him and restored him.

But Yahweh also declared that Job had spoken correctly about Him, unlike Job’s friends. What did Job say that was correct? He acknowledged that God does not always bring immediate judgment on the wicked, nor does He always reward the righteous, something the friends of Job were unwilling to admit. To do so would mean they had lost control of their lives. They thought that God was required to reward them in this life if they did right. They could control their destiny, they thought, by staying pure. They ignored the evidence Job was willing to accept for God’s absolute sovereignty and freedom from manipulation.

Satan? We haven’t seen him since chapter 2, because he was ultimately a non-player, a pawn in God’s plan to exalt His servant Job. God knows what He is doing and His purpose toward all His children is love. Is allowing suffering in our lives a sample of God’s love? Of course it is. Look what it did for Job, what he learned as a result. God is not a vendor who pays out blessing for righteousness. He deals with each of His children as individuals and tailors life to their greatest development in Christlikeness.

Discussion Questions

1. Share your experience of restoration after a downturn.
2. Is there something concerning which you wish God would vindicate you, as He did Job?
3. If you had been Job would you have felt obliged to pray for those three friends who only increased your suffering?
4. Job’s length of days may be an indication that he lived closer to the time after the flood, when people still lived longer than people did by the time of Abraham, meaning he may have lived prior to Abraham.       Does it help you to know this, and if so, how?
5. Why do you think God gave Job twice what he had before?
6. What is the biggest lesson you have taken from the book of Job?