Bible Commentary - Job 42

In this chapter, Job repents and God restores him to his former glory.

This is the final chapter in the book of Job.  It’s a deceptively short chapter for how much it impacts the overall narrative and moral of the story.

There are two really big events in this chapter.  The first is when Job speaks in verses 2-6 and his big conclusion is “repenting in dust and ashes” (v. 6).  Job admits that he “declared that which I did not understand”, that he was speaking about things without knowledge.  The “things too wonderful for me” in this case is referring to Job’s assertions that God has been punishing him unfairly.  More generally, Job admits that he is simply not qualified to judge God’s conduct or ascribe any blame to God for the things that Job has suffered.

God challenged Job, “will you really annul my judgments? Will you condemn me that you may be justified?” (Job 40:8).  In this chapter, Job answers with a definitive no.  He cannot, and will not, condemn God because Job simply does not understand the ways of God.  Job cannot judge God in matters that he does not understand, and Job recognizes that when he previously questioned God, he was speaking without knowledge.

The second big thing is that when Job prays for his friends, God “restores his fortune”, giving him back double of everything he had lost.

In many places, Job’s friends had been appealing for him to repent of his sins and that God would restore him.  Ironically, it appears this is almost exactly what happened.  Job repented of questioning God, and God restored him.  To be sure, Job did not have any sins that caused his suffering in the first place; God himself called Job “blameless and upright” (Job 1:8).  He does repent, though, even if it doesn’t line up exactly.  I call this ironic because one of the most significant points in Job is criticizing and refuting the conventional theology of the three friends.  They were wrong about Job, they accused him repeatedly of wickedness as the root cause of his suffering, and it was simply never true.  Yet here at the very end, Job does end up repenting.

I don’t think the author of Job put this in to secretly reaffirm the three friends, contrary to the rest of the book.  Instead, I think both Job’s repentance and his restoration to glory serve separate purposes.

Job’s role in this story is to represent the suffering righteous person.  As such, we can view Job’s reaction to his suffering as emblematic of the “natural response” of any righteous person to suffering.  Job questions God’s fairness and justice, because he simply doesn’t see or understand the reason why he is suffering.  This is how nearly anyone would react, even “good people” like Job.  Job’s repentance is how the author of Job asserts that we, too, must change the way we think, repent of blaming God for our suffering, and continue to trust and honor God even in our suffering.  Job is all about changing our perspective, and we are encouraged to emulate Job’s repentance.

Job’s restoration to prosperity, health and glory is a reaffirmation of God’s identity as the ultimate judge, protector of the righteous and punisher of the wicked.  Job is righteous, so his restoration here is a final conclusive statement about the ultimate fate of the righteous.  While we may suffer for a time, God promises us a final blessing.

This restoration was not obvious from the earlier parts of the book.  I don’t think we could have necessarily predicted it, and if Job ended his life dying from disease and suffering, it would have changed the tone of the story considerably but it would not have meaningfully contradicted any of the earlier text.  This makes the restoration of Job a pivotal moment.  It’s short, but it dramatically changes the meaning of this book.  We can view suffering not as our ultimate fate, but only a temporary condition until God restores us, blesses us and gives us double what we have lost.

One common tension with the book of Job is that people look at this story and point at modern stories of “suffering righteous” who die and never see that restoration in their earthly life.  These examples are held up as a contradiction to Job, as though the existence of other suffering people who (as far as we know) are never restored refutes the theology of Job.

A common reaction to this criticism is to spiritualize Job’s restoration and assert that for some people they are restored during their earthly life, but that other people are restored and receive God’s blessing in the afterlife.  We may suffer while on earth, but that God promises our ultimate blessing and restoration when we return to him.

I would propose a second reaction, however.  Not that the first one is wrong, I do believe that God promises all the suffering righteous an ultimate restoration, whether in this life or the next.  In addition to that, I claim that asserting apparent contradictions to Job’s restoration is ignoring all of the most important parts of Job.  The most important part of Job is God’s response in chapters 38-41, where the fundamental premise is that God has a greater wisdom and understanding and that we, humans on earth, simply do not understand God’s ways and his wisdom.

To claim a logical contradiction with Job’s restoration (because we do not see everyone restored to prosperity) is effectively applying the wisdom of men to the ways of God, and returning to the role of judging God and condemning God.  This is exactly what Job repented of doing, and now we are doing it again.

Frankly, I don’t think the book of Job promises that the righteous will all be restored.  Job is restored, but God does not state this as a promise.  We might be restored, and we might not.  The point of Job is not to promise us restoration, it is to promise us that God has a wisdom greater than any human understanding, and that we have to respect and honor God’s supremacy.

What can I say in conclusion of this book?  I think Job is a challenging book to analyze overall.  The topic, why do bad things happen to good people, is a remarkably difficult philosophical question despite how easy it is to ask.  It is so easy for us to entangle the question with our own personal emotions, and we see exactly that happen in this book with both Job and his friends responding emotionally in a variety of places.  God’s response feels frustratingly indirect, though I believe upon deeper reflection that God is indeed speaking to human suffering and gives us the best answer we can really hope for.

Even in God’s answer, there is a sense of “this is a very hard question and you will not understand the answer”.  It might be true, but humans are a curious and inquisitive race, and we rarely take these kinds of answers with any sense of satisfaction.  If I answer a question with “you could not possibly understand my answer”, it might be true but it feels evasive and is unsatisfying, because when we ask a question what we are seeking is understanding.

On the other hand, if it’s actually true that we cannot understand the answer, then there isn’t anything else God could tell us that would do better.  If he tried telling us the real reason, we wouldn’t understand it, and if he ignored the question then that would feel even more evasive and unsatisfying.  This is a tough spot and there might not be anything that God could say that would leave us happy or satisfied, so he does the most respectful thing possible and simply tells us the truth.

It’s also worth mentioning that God’s response to Job is strikingly impersonal.  Much earlier in this commentary I raised the question of how Job and his three friends view God.  I asked how they perceived God, and how they framed their interactions with God.  My answer, in broad terms, is that they perceived God as the judge of human conduct.  God is the lawgiver who has defined good and evil, blesses those who do good and punishes those who do evil.  This is itself impersonal because, besides denying any close relationship between God and people, it also frames God as emotionally neutral or distant.

In God’s response, that emotional neutrality is reinforced.  Read through God’s response again and look for any place at all where God speaks about his feelings in any way.  Is God a friend of Job?  Is God happy or sad about anything?  We don’t see any evidence of it.  God contradicts the three friends in other ways, but in this way they seem to be correct.

It’s tough for me to close out this commentary.  With such a deep book, I feel like there is always something more that I should be saying, or some other point I should be making.  Nevertheless, I will close out my commentary here.  If my readers are left unsatisfied with God’s answer, or some question that does not feel properly answered, I would encourage them to pursue a deeper understanding, and I pray that God would grant it to you.

Next, we will enter the book of Psalms.