It is good to see all your happy faces as we come to the very end of our study of Job. When we started our study of Job, I could not possibly have imagined that our lives would all still be dealing with the pandemic as we bring it to an end. In fact, I was thinking, what are we gonna do in the fall when we're back in church? Do we do the Friday Bible study? Do we take a week off from our regular Bible studies? And lo and behold, the pandemic is still with us. Personally, I've never been through a detailed study of the Book of Job before, in terms of having a discussion or classes or sermons, and so I hope it's been as helpful and enjoyable to many of you as it has been to me. The concluding section of this book, like the opening two chapters, should actually frame the way that we read the entire book. So while there are portions of the book, actually a number of portions of the book, where in individual verses we're going, this could mean one thing or it could mean something else, in light of that frame, it turns out that all the big issues of the book are really clear if we just listen to what the Lord has to say. In the opening chapters, we hear the Lord describing Job as the most righteous man on the face of the earth. He boasts about Job. And here at the end of the book, we also get the Lord's verdict, both on Job and also on Job's friends. And so if we read the rest of the book in light of what God says, remembering that God is the final, the perfect, and completely authoritative interpreter of the book, we will get it right. Our job is simply to listen closely. Tonight, because we are actually at the very end of the book, I'm hoping we'll have just a bit more discussion as we reflect on the book as a whole. But that'll be up to you, of course, if how much you want to volunteer and talk and ask questions. But I think that would be useful. But the key thing is for us to listen to God, not to let our imaginations run wild, but to listen to what God has to say to us. Before we do that together, let's go before the throne of grace. Let's pray. Father, we are so grateful for your kindness to us, that you have given us your word as a lamp unto our feet and as a light unto our paths. And so we ask that you would open our ears, our minds, and our hearts, that we would rightly understand what you are saying. And we also pray that through your spirit, that you would not leave any of us to be mere idle hearers, but that you would cause each of us to be a doer of your word for your glory and for the good of your people. We ask this in Jesus's name, amen. So the concluding section that we're looking at tonight is a little bit shorter. It has two sections to it, but it has three main points. The three points are these. First, the Lord sharply rebukes Job's friends. This ought to significantly impact the way that we read everything they've said from chapter three up until they stop speaking. Second, the Lord graciously restores Job's friends. He doesn't simply leave them rebuked. He restores his friends, and he does so in a way which not only reconciles these men to God, but which also fosters the reconciliation between these men and Job. And third, we have a description of how the Lord blesses the end of Job's life. It's important to see that these blessings are tokens of God's love for Job. They are not somehow balancing it out so that we go, well, yeah, he suffered a lot, but he got it paid back to him, so everything's fine. Rather, we want to see these as tokens of God's grace, tokens of God's love, a love that will endure for Job throughout eternity. We begin with the first two points in verses seven through nine. Would someone read verses seven through nine for us? Seven through nine. I can do that. Thank you, Robin. And so it was, after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends for you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has. Now therefore take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams. 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 lest I deal with you according according to your folly, because you have not spoken of me, what is right, as my servant Job has. So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuahite and Zophar the Napithite, I can't pronounce those, sorry, went and did as the Lord commanded them, for the Lord had accepted Job. Thank you, Robin, and don't worry about the names that that's an occupational hazard of reading through the Old Testament sometimes. Thank you. This passage, like the opening two chapters of the book are absolutely critical for how we read the book. In the opening two chapters, the words that the Lord speaks to Satan actually makes clear to all of us both what's going on, but also that Job was a conspicuously righteous man. The Lord himself had boasted of Job to Satan like this. Have you considered my servant Job, but there is none like him on earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. And even after Job had lost everything in just one horrible day, we read this. Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, naked I came from my mother's womb. and naked shall I return. The Lord gave The Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And in all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. That's really important to remember, because throughout the book, Job's friends start imagining all these secret sins and wickednesses that Job was guilty of. And we know, because God has told us, that Job has in fact been a righteous man. Now when we come to the end of the book, we discover that the friends were not only wrong about Job, they were also wrong about God. At the end of the book, the Lord renders his own verdict on what Job and his friends have been saying for 35 chapters. In light of the In light of the Lord's withering interrogation of Job, we might have actually imagined that this would go somewhat differently, that the Lord might look to Job's friends and say, this is where you were wrong, and then look at Job and say, this is where you were wrong. You're also terribly wrong. But that's not what the Lord says. What the Lord says is, 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. By the way, get that echo of my servant. Remember back in chapter one, when the Lord speaks to Satan, he says, have you considered my servant Job? Here at the end of the book, he's still describing Job as my servant. And he says, not only have you spoken wrong about me, but he's also said that Job has spoken rightly about me. In fact, there are three really important things for us to see in this one declaration. First, Eliphaz and his friends were wrong in what they were saying about God. Now, I've heard several sermons in my life on Job that went something like this. There was a passage there by Eliphaz or Bildad or Zophar, and it was applied to the congregation as the straightforward word of God that they ought to apply to their own lives and take it to heart. And I've heard that several times. And every time I wonder, what's the congregation going to do when they get to the end of the book and discover that God disagrees with the preacher? Because God does not say that. God says they were wrong about Job, first two chapters, but they're also wrong about me. This is not the word of God on Eliphaz's lips for you to apply to your life. Wisdom comes from us understanding how they got it wrong. Now, so I trust that none of you are going to make that same mistake, but I just want to remind you that the way to interpret the whole book is to interpret it in light of what God says, because God is the perfect interpreter of his own book. By the way, this brings me back to my very favorite rule of hermeneutics. There are lots of things that people like Silas and pastors and people that want to teach seminary and stuff have to learn in terms of technical scholarship. But more important than any of those is simply reading the Bible. And so when you don't understand something, my very favorite tip in hermeneutics, just keep reading. So there were a number of times, if you were just reading through Job for the first time, or you hadn't read it for a long time, you might be thinking, Eliphaz seems like he's making a good point here. But if I read all the way through the end of the book, I'm told by God, but big picture, he's wrong about Job, he's wrong about me, the living God. And so I can go back and read that again in light of this bigger truth. That's just such an important thing for us to get. Sometimes the best thing to do is to just keep on reading. Second, the Lord's wrath burned against them for what they were saying. That is, the Lord didn't just show up and say, you have a few misunderstandings here I want to clear up. What they had done was wicked. And God's wrath, Almighty God's wrath, was burning against Job's friends for what they had said. So here's my first question for you to discuss. Why was God so angry with them? That's a pretty significant question to ask. He says, my wrath burns against you. Does God's wrath just burn against people every time they get anything wrong in theology? But what is it about Job's friends that caused God's wrath to burn against them? And there's a number of good guesses. So take a stance at this. They judged unrighteously. They judged Job unrighteously. I think that's really important. What else? They mischaracterized God. So we do know that they mischaracterized God. Why is that such a big deal, Ray? Because God says, even in his commandments, not to take his name in vain. And they basically, in that way, they're taking his name in vain by misrepresenting who he is. Yeah, I think that's actually really good. They're claiming that God is doing stuff. So in one sense, they're taking his name in vain. What else? I think that also points to them not knowing God and not having a personal relationship with God. I think that's true that they don't have a personal relationship with God, although interestingly, the Lord's going to instruct them how to worship him rightly in just a moment. So I think it does point to that. What else, though? Why would God be enraged? I think these are all good answers. I think there's more that can be said as extensions on what's already been said. God is angry. One thing that sticks in my mind is when they kept denying that there was any mediator. So to me, that's significant, you know, that it's like you're denying Christ. I think that's huge, Dan. I want to talk about that a little bit later, actually, in terms of how they're wrong. And maybe you could say that God has that sort of wrath against every human being on the face of the earth. But I think there's probably at least two other things, and Robin and Ray have already pointed to these. I just want to go on just a little bit further. Robin pointed out that they were wrong in what they were saying about Job. They mischaracterized him. They judged him unjustly. I think that's true. I just want to add they also judged him unlovingly. That is, they're supposed to be loving their neighbor. Here's this guy that's suffering just horribly, one of God's children. And instead of coming and trying to offer comfort, even without having the answers, they decide to beat Job up. So there's a mischaracterization, but there's also the opposite of love toward them. And in terms of God, I want to say something else. They don't simply get God wrong. They authoritatively get God wrong. They're speaking as though they have God speaking to them. You almost have that kind of imagery about like they have visions in the night and stuff. They're speaking on behalf of God. And I want to say that's a really dangerous thing, to speak authoritatively and say, thus says the Lord, in a sense, when you're not holding an open Bible in your hands and going, thus says the Lord, or you're not a real prophet. Are there any passages in the New Testament that might connect to that, this issue of the danger of talking about God in an authoritative way? There's actually a bunch, but I have one in mind. Does God warn us about the danger of being people who stand up and tell people authoritatively, God is like this, this is what God wants you to do. The Pharisees certainly made claims about the Pharisees do that and they get judged for that because they have made void the Word of God for the sake of the tradition of men. So that's actually a good example. I'm thinking about a more generic example of those and don't be like the Pharisees. There's a warning in the epistles. about rushing to be someone who stands up and says, this is what's the truth about God. You need to believe this. This is what God wants you to do. And don't worry if none of you get it, I'm going to call on Silas. I was going to throw out there in James. James says, not many of you should be teachers because you will receive greater condemnation. Fantastic. I knew I could call on you with confidence. Yes. Let not many of you become teachers. It is a really scary thing. for people to stand up and start talking authoritatively about God when they don't know what they're saying, God doesn't think that's a minor issue. And please note, this is very different from being mistaken, right? So you're in a Sunday school class and you go, I got an idea, I think it's this, and you're wrong. God isn't angry at you for that. It's about us learning together. But you stand in the pulpit and you say, God says, and you're just winging it, that's what Job's friends are doing, I don't think God takes that very lightly. In fact, James says, as Silas quoted, we will face a more severe judgment. Let's move on to the third point. The third point is this, and I really don't want you to miss this. The Lord declares that Job had, in fact, spoken rightly about him. That is, when he talks to Eliphaz and to the two friends, he doesn't only say, you're wrong. He says that Job has been right. We realize there's a problem with the interrogation going on, that Job may have taken a wrong position at one point with God. He was putting himself up ready to debate God and have God have a discussion. But the Lord himself explicitly declares that Job has spoken rightly about him. I think Robert Alter puts this really well, a secular Jewish scholar, but one who is a very, very fine translator of the Old Testament. Alter writes, the three companions had repeatedly proffered lies about Job and about the divine system of justice in order to preserve their notion of reward and punishment. They were, in effect, corrupted witnesses on God's behalf. Though the Lord from the whirlwind roundly rebuked Job for his presumption, Job in the debate, unlike his three companions, had remained honest to his own observation of reality and his awareness of his own acts. So even in his presumption, he had spoken rightly about God and had clung to his own integrity. Thus God pointedly continues here to call Job his servant, as he did in his exchanges with Satan. So we know that Job's friends had spoken wrongly about Job when they accused the most righteous man of their day of all manner of secret sins, but the Lord focuses on something else. They have spoken wrongly when Job has spoken rightly about God. And it's actually a bigger deal when speaking rightly or wrongly about Job, although they're both important. So here's another question for discussion. And Dan has already touched on this a bit. What are some of the main ways that Job has spoken rightly about God, whereas friends have spoken wrongly? And there's a couple of different angles you could take on this. But just think some of the big picture issues. How has Job spoken rightly about God where his friends have spoken wrongly about God? Anything at all? Well, Job... Ray. Job, he speaks truthful about God because he knows God, where his friends can't speak truthful about him because they don't really know him. Yeah, I think that's a really central issue, so that's good. Do you have some specific examples in mind, though, where because Job knows God, he says A, whereas his friends are denying A or not talking about A? What are some of the theological ways that his friends are speaking wrongly about God, whereas Job is speaking rightly? Well, when Job says, I know that my Redeemer lives, but I'm not sure the opposite side of that for his friends. Or maybe they aren't talking about their Redeemer. Of course, that's before. Well, I don't know. Anyway, I'm going to stop talking. No, you do know. That's exactly right. I think that's actually the most central issue in the book. is Job's friends do not have a merciful God. Even when they use the word mercy, what they mean is slightly lenient. They don't have any place for redemptive suffering. And therefore, they don't have any place for forgiveness of sins in the meaningful sense. Their system is God rewards good people, God punishes bad people. That's it. And so let's get that whole verse here from Job 19. It's verses 25 through 27. or 27a, for I know that my Redeemer lives, and he shall stand at last on the earth. And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eye shall behold, and not another. Right? His friends don't get this at all. They never offer Job. Job, if you've sinned, God surely will forgive you. If you just turn to him, we're going to pray for your forgiveness, even if they were assuming he was sinning. They don't have any of that. What they have for Job is reform your life and be good, and God will reward you for being good. Now, I want you to think about those verses from Job 19 that Kristen referenced, because I think they're so central to getting the book. Those are verses we want to remember every time we think about the Book of Job. Because actually in them, Job makes three significant confessions. First, he professes his confidence in a merciful God who redeems his people. That's so central to who God is, right? Think it's the heart of Christianity? It's part of the Old Testament religion, too. And his friends don't have that at all. They also express Job's confidence in his own bodily resurrection and his confidence that he will see God for himself on the other side of the grave. Job's friends could have been standing a little bit more ethical integrity, perhaps, but they could have been standing with Joel Osteen talking about your best life now. That's a really significant misunderstanding of what God is doing, to think that God is only concerned with this short span of life that we have here. And in fact, Job is the only one in the book who's looking forward to the age to come, right? Redemption, resurrection, and glory with God forever. I myself will see. Though I have died, yet shall I live. So I think those are really big issues. David? Yeah. And he reconfirms that in verse 5 of chapter 42. Yeah, that's a good point, Ray. Yeah. Here's a really interesting bit of irony. It's really good news for Job's friends, but they're wrong about God. Think about that. It's really good news for Job's friends that they're wrong about God. Because if God was like the way they thought, all that would be left for them is judgment and condemnation. They were wrong. They were bad. They made God angry. Judgment and condemnation. But instead, what they find out is because God is the God of Job, He's a God that's merciful and gracious who makes a way of reconciliation and forgiveness for their presumption and their sins. I think that's a really interesting irony in the book that's worth paying attention to. God says that they're to take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. Then the Lord adds, and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. Isn't that great? Wonderful mercy of God. Now verse eight can actually be read just a little bit differently. Verse eight could be read, not offer up, but and cause the burnt offerings to be offered up. That kind of sounds like the same thing probably to most of you. But I like this second idea, the second reading, and caused the offerings to be offered up because it suggests that they might be bringing these animals to Job so that Job would offer them up on their behalf. That is, Job would be functioning kind of like both a prophet, the one that prays for them, and the priest. And you remember at the beginning of the book, Job was offering up um, sacrifices, uh, Holberg offerings for his children to cover over their sins. And I think it kind of fits nicely to think that God is telling Job's friends to bring these animals to Job so that Job will offer them up for the forgiveness of their sins. Uh, can't prove that, but to me that, that works really well. And I just want to suggest that for you. In either case, the Lord puts special emphasis on Job's prayer. He says, my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. And at least for me, I naturally think right away of James with him talking about Elijah, the prayer of a righteous man has great power. Right, God is saying I'm going to use Job praying for you as the means of healing you. But perhaps we also have to think of Genesis 20. I wonder how many of you had Genesis 20 jump into your mind with Abraham and Abimelech. In Genesis 20, the Lord commands Abimelech after Sarah had been taken by Abimelech, right, you know, they've been playing this thing about she's my sister and everything, and the Lord had made Abimelech's whole household barren. So none of the women would bear children. Just as an aside, that's so we wouldn't think that the son that was born to Sarah was actually a Bimelech's kid, right? So God makes the whole household barren and passes that judgment on them. Then the Lord appears to Bimelech and says, you got to give this woman back to this man. But that's not all that he says. He says, now then return the man's wife for he is a prophet so that he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours." Every Jewish reader of Job would have connected Job here, the prophet Job, with the prophet Abraham, praying for the healing of the other party. The difference, of course, was Abimelech was kind of an innocent party there, tricked a bit by Abraham, whereas Job's friends are actually clearly guilty. But it still both points to them being prophets. Here's what I want you to see about God. What's God doing? God is creating and instituting a method of reconciliation with himself that also reconciles people with one another, right? It's true with Abimelech going to Abraham, they're gonna actually have to get reconciled to one another in order for Abimelech to be reconciled to God and to live. And that's true with Job's friends too. Job's friends are going to have to approach Job with animals, if my reading is correct, for him to offer up on their behalf. And frankly, that means they're going to have to acknowledge they were wrong about him or they were wrong about God. And as God uses that to reconcile the friends to himself, he's also calling on Job to pray for them, right? And that's a way of getting Job's heart turned toward them. Now, we're never told that Job was holding a grudge against the friends. But it would not have been easy for Job to forget, as he thought about all his children dying on one day. But his friends had said, well, it's because they were wicked. They had secret sin and God was judging them. That would not be an easy thing to forget. It would not be easy for Job to forget that they had accused him of oppressing the poor. It wasn't true, but they had accused him of that. Or they even accused him of being a secret blasphemer of God. but the fact that Job had to pray for them and they had to offer up sacrifices was a way of bringing them together even as they were being reconciled or the friends were being reconciled to God. And I just think, isn't God good? He brings about the reconciliation of sinners with himself in such a way that it also brings about reconciliation among us sinners with each other as God's children. As Paul would later say in Romans, oh, the depth of the riches in wisdom and knowledge of God. Or simple people like me say, isn't God good? I think we want to see the beauty and the wisdom of God's plan here in reconciliation. Are there any thoughts or questions about verses 7 through 9? 7 through 9, anything at all? David, do we know why Elihu's left out? No. So there's a lot of speculation about the fact that after Elihu stopped speaking, no one talks about him. He's not mentioned by Job. He's not mentioned by God. We just don't know. That has led some people to all manner of wild speculation. I think probably the best guess is to say that in some ways, this young guy that was trying to step up onto the scene, ignoring him as a way of saying this didn't work, right? That he wasn't worth answering. But who knows? David, it only makes me think, too, about how humbling it must have been for Job's friends on a number of fronts. And they had to eat some humble pie because God told them to bring the sacrifices to Job and Job was the one that's going to pray for them and and it's just the irony of them never showing mercy or compassion to Job but here God is showing them tremendous mercy and Yeah. So I think that's a good insight. It would have been very humbling. I think also, frankly, terrifying. Presumably they were there because it's all it seems like it's all one scene. They were there listening to Job getting questioned by the Lord out of the whirlwind. And that probably was a terrifying experience for them, too. But in one sense, they're going, yeah, God's showing up and showing that Job was wrong. And when the Lord turns to them, I think they frankly must have been terrified. And to hear those words that God never says to Job, my wrath burns against you. So terrifying, but you're right, humbling. But let's make an application of that in our own lives. It's a humbling that leads to true reconciliation so that you can come out on the other side, right? And I think sometimes Our temptation is to want to be so concerned about not hurting anyone's feelings that we avoid actually getting to true reconciliation. So if you actually humble yourself and acknowledge that you were wrong, it can be really hard, and you actually acknowledge you're fully wrong, and you don't do the, yeah, I did this, but, just I'm sorry I offended you. I'm sorry I hurt you. You can get to the other side of that and have completely restored relationships. And I think there's every reason to think that actually happens with Job and his friends, although we're not told about the relationship after this. So good observation. Other thoughts? Do you think there was any significance where God is very specific about the number of bulls and the number of rams to sacrifice as that number of completeness and perfection with the number seven of like, this is completely done? Yeah, that's probably right. The idea of completeness, it's a right number. It's not simply one each, as it were. And so I think completeness makes sense. Of course, they had to pick some number, but I think the Lord picked seven precisely because this was supposed to put an end to it. If you want to tease it out, you can go read through the book of Leviticus and see the different times, different numbers of animals are offered. And there are a couple of times when you'll see, but there'll be seven animals offered. I don't know what to make of that. I kind of like your pretty direct application of it just makes sense in a Jewish way of thinking. This was a complete atonement, symbolically, of course, pointing forward to the complete atonement that Christ would accomplish on the cross for them. But yes. Well, there's also the pattern of sacrifice, prayer, intercession, and acceptance. Yeah, that's a pattern all throughout the Old Testament, because it points forward to Christ, who is, in fact, both our prophet and our priest. And as our priest offers himself, he's the sacrifice, too. So yeah, those things always go together. I should say, by the way, I just kind of casually passed over the fact that these sacrifices point forward to Christ. I want to suggest something a little more stronger than that, which I can't say 100% here, but I say 99.8% here and 100% when you come to the Mosaic Law. Remember, we're not operating with the Mosaic Law here, which is that they are not mere signs, but the Old Testament sacrifices, like the Lord's Supper, were sacraments And therefore they were means of grace right so they weren't just visual aids that helped people they were actually something God was doing as a way of meeting with the people in grace right so. I think these sacrifices, I say 99.8% here in Job, because there's no reason to think of them differently than in the Mosaic law, were in fact more than bare signs. God was showing grace to them by giving them these sacraments, which linked to the meritorious sacrifice of Christ. The blood of bulls and goats can't take away sin. But God can still use them as means of grace, just as he uses Job's prayer as a means of grace. Why don't we move on? Would someone read verses 10 and 11 for us? Verses 10 and 11. I can do that. Thank you, Kristen. 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. Thank you, sweetheart. The Lord restored the fortunes of Job. Do you notice when he did it? He did it after Job prayed. Job prayed for his friends as a destitute and physically broken man, who is God's servant, we loved. It is only with the reconciliation after Job prays for them that the Lord restores their fortunes, his fortunes. And the first thing that the Lord emphasizes is not the restoration of Job's wealth, it is the restoration of him being a beloved member of an extended family. So you want to think about this image of eating bread together, as we sometimes say, breaking bread together. shared lives. It's one of the things that's so difficult with COVID. We're not getting over each other's houses and sharing meals and stuff. There's part of that shared life, face-to-face, eating meals together that is really quite special. I remember Fred Smith, the founder of Federal Express, saying that he would go out to fancy restaurants all over the world on business meals, but he'd only invite his friends to come over his house and eat there in his kitchen with him. And this is more of that latter thing. It's that restored extended family of love that gets the first emphasis. And I think that's actually important because the language of sympathy and comfort in verse 11 sounds a lot like what the friends originally showed up to bring Job at the beginning of the story. But you notice at the beginning of the story and throughout the book, we never have his friends eating with him. Right? It's more philosophical. They start arguing and debating. Obviously, over all these days, they must have eaten, but they weren't breaking bread together. Now that there's reconciliation, there's this family expression of love, of belonging together that is symbolized through their eating together. Job is moved from being a pariah on the outside, sitting on the ash heap, back to being a beloved member of the community. And I think FI Anderson makes a really helpful observation here. Anderson writes, it is worth dwelling on the fact that even when everything is set right, Job still feels the hurt of his losses and needs human comfort for them. They come and they offer condolences and comfort, even after he's being restored. Part of us could naturally think it would have been much better if they had offered condolences and comfort before he was restored. Nevertheless, I think this teaches us something important. When those we care for move past the crisis, we can often easily think it's over. But the fact that their circumstances have changed doesn't mean that all the hurt magically and automatically goes away. Right, so we should be sensitive people may still need quite a bit of consoling and comfort. After the crisis has ended. Here's a really really insignificant tidbit. So, if you want to get a glass of water this is a good time to do so. they bring these gold rings to Job. And it turns out that the technical term for these gold rings, the Hebrew word, is not a ring you'd put on your finger, but it's a ring you'd put in your nose or in your ear. The reason why I mentioned that is I think it's just one of those helpful reminders that Job is not an 18th or 19th century European gentleman, right? He's 35 centuries earlier in the ancient Near East. Their lives were actually quite a bit different from ours. By the way, if you ever think about those scenes where Abraham sends his servant out, and he's going to get a wife or a son and stuff. I think we kind of Europeanized this whole scenarios. We don't tend to think of the woman coming out with a ring in her nose or something. And I think it's helpful for us to realize it's a little bit different than the way our culture works today. I did mention that was really insignificant. Those are questions about verses 10 and 11. Anything at all? David, back to the- Go ahead. David, back to the prayer, and God asked Job to pray for his friends, but God in a sense is confident of Job's righteous prayer because he's been a man of prayer. When he prayed for his children back in Chapter 1, all the time, after they had a party, he would pray for them and give sacrifices to God in case they profaned his name in some way. Yeah, so Job is a prophet, Job is the Lord's servant, and the Lord isn't saying, have my servant Job pray for you, and then the Lord's sitting on pins and needles wondering if Job's going to actually pull this off, right? God knows what's going to happen, but he's still commanding it in such a way that the reconciliation with himself comes together with the reconciliation of his children. I think that's really kind of beautiful. Yeah, and it also, again demonstrates to his for Job's friends. I'm asking Job to pray to pray for you because he can and he does he can do it in a righteous way. No, that's really good. I do think on the forgiveness side, it would have been easy for Job's friends to go off by themselves and kind of do a half measure of, yeah, I'm offering up sacrifices and getting reconciled to God, and then really had difficulty getting back to Job. So the Lord is, in fact, forcing them to acknowledge that he is, that is Job, is the Lord's servant. You mentioned earlier, Ray, about the humbling of this, the humility involved, but it's the humility that leads to restoration and healing. Much, much, much better than, you know, I'm going to change this just slightly, but it's the same point. I often say when we're talking about forgiveness, remember to say, I'm sorry, I hurt you, please forgive me. rather than I'm sorry, or I apologize, which don't leave me vulnerable. And remember to say, I forgive you, rather than responding, which has become so normal in our culture, we've all done it. It was no big deal. Sometimes it actually is no big deal. But even when that's true, you can say, actually, I didn't think it was a big deal, but I forgive you. Get to the actual reconciliation rather than people just kind of going through niceties and not actually dealing with the offense and the rupture in the relationship. God will not allow that to happen here. God causes them to have to confess their sins and Job prays for them so that they have to deal with their, honestly, this would have been a big deal, weeks and weeks of Job's friends mischaracterizing him and beating him up verbally, but God's bringing it to healing. Any other thoughts on these verses, 10 and 11? I was sort of surprised to hear the phrase, the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. Evil suggests some moral judgment. God didn't wrong Job. Can you talk about the use of the word evil in that context? Sure, I would translate it differently, but not everyone agrees with my translations. They would all agree with the theology of it, just people might do it differently. The word ra'ah in Hebrew can mean evil, but it also frequently means calamity. It can be just something bad that happens. And this is a famous thing in Isaiah as well, where the Lord says, I am he who brings ra'ah. And that is, I bring calamity. He's not the author of sin. So that could be helpful to realize here is that's what we're talking about, right? That the Lord has brought calamity upon Job. That's true. Now, we could say that the Lord allowed Satan to do it, but God never steps out of that and goes, hey, I'm not sovereign here, right? God is saying, yeah, I brought calamity upon Job. in terms of hardship, but you don't want to think of it as moral evil. God isn't sinning. He's not the author of sin. Right. What do you think Satan was thinking at this point? Oops. No, I don't know. I mean, who knows? We do have the really strange thing in the New Testament that Satan does go after Jesus. And perhaps it is simply the blinding of sin that Satan unwittingly is involved in putting the son of God to death, which is actually the very blow with which God crushes Satan's head, as it were, and destroys his kingdom. But sin is very blinding, and sin is irrational. So I mean, I think that's not a bad explanation of it. But here, I'm sure that Satan is no longer happy with his whole ploy about Job. By the way, keep in mind that Satan's big target was not Job, but God. What Satan was trying to say is, you went through this plan, God, with all these people, and no one actually worships you because you're not that great. And the Lord's saying, Job does. Consider my servant Job. And what the book has actually done is demonstrated God is, in fact, the merciful, giving God. And so that does not work well for Satan at all. Anything else on 10 and 11? I kind of got it. And again, it could be in left field. But when you talked about when the friends came over to comfort after he was restored, I actually thought of Proverbs 19 forward says wealth makes many friends, but the poor is separated from his friends. And also thinking like, where were they when he was poor and destitute and You know stuck on the ash heap they weren't there, then I don't know it's just made me think of that more than anything. Well Robin I think that's actually a nice connection that you're making the only thing I would say here in job is the emphasis is not on the family members and friends, but it's on Joe. Right. So it's on this idea of him being restored. And we're not we're not going to praise all his friends for coming over and his extended family, because the most natural thing that we would all be thinking is, where have you been? Right. So so I think you have a good you have a good connection, but we also don't want to miss the fact that it's a sign of Job's blessing. Right. God is blessing Job here by restoring him to happy relationships. on an extended basis. Does that also go back to the very first chapter where he has this calamity, and this is also where I think Job rightly speaks about God, where he says, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Lord. He blesses them whether he's got everything or not. He never curses him. And then through the rest of the book, he basically admits that You know, God can do whatever he wants because he's God and he made us. Yeah, no, I mean, that's really that's a really important part of interpreting the book. And you notice what you did, though. And I just want to encourage everyone to see this is the way to interpret the book of Job is always keep the first two chapters in the last chapter in mind. And then then you have to interpret everything in between in light of what God has said. And then you come up to a right understanding of the book. Would someone read the end of the book here, which is verses 12 through 17? 12 through 17. I can do that. 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, Geminiah. and the name of the second, Keziah, and the name of the third, Kerenhapuk. 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 for generations. And Job died an old man and full of days. Thank you, Ray. And nice job there with Karen Hapook. Were you practicing this or just kind of rolls off the tongue? The wealth given to Job is literally twice what he started the book as. And in the beginning of the book, he's already the greatest man in the East and God doubles his wealth. So it's designed to be a sign of how the Lord is giving him these great material blessings. Nevertheless, it's really important that we see these as tokens of God's love and grace, not payback for his suffering. You don't get here and go, well, you know, he suffered an awful lot. Now he's got all this stuff back. It kind of balances out really nicely. To say the obvious, nobody would go through life at the end of their life going, I lost all my children, but you know what? God gave me new kids anyway, kind of replaced them all. That's not the point. The point here is God is giving these material blessings as a sign of his love for his faithful servant Job, right? One of the reasons why that's so important for us to remember is that the Lord, in fact, doesn't guarantee to any of us that we're going to get the same thing, that our suffering in this life is somehow going to get balanced out by God giving us other blessings in this life. Rather, we confess with the Apostle Paul This light in momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. By the way, keep in mind that Job is the only person in the whole story, other than God, who is thinking in terms of eternity, not just in terms of this present life. But all of us as Christians, we ought to be living today in light of eternity and not just for the next few months or the next few years. Well, oddly enough, a number of commentators have actually complained about how the book ends. They've suggested that the author of the book, these are obviously people that don't believe in the inspiration and authority of God. They're not saying God has done this. They're saying there's an author of the book of Job. by making this a happy ending, has actually destroyed the theology of the book. Because the whole point is, is Job loves God for who God is, and not because he's going to get a payback. I think that's just a really, really strange criticism, even if for some reason you don't believe the Bible is, in fact, the Word of God. As F.I. Anderson points out, That point, the point about the theology, has been made so firmly that these final touches cannot harm it. God does what he pleases. It would be absurd to say that he must keep Job in miserable poverty in order to safeguard the theology. These gifts at the end are gestures of grace, not rewards for virtue. I think he's right about that. But I simply want to add, if we're concerned with God being the giving and merciful God, we too have missed a big part of the point of the book. The book is revealing to us that God is a God of grace. In fact, a God of grace even to Job's friends. They were wrong throughout the whole book. They were mean to Job. They misrepresented God. And God brought about forgiveness for them. Right, so please don't go down that path. It's a good thing and it fits naturally with the book that God would in fact give these material blessings to Job as a sign that he is the gracious God who loves him and will love him forever. There is a rather small but somewhat perplexing question here at the end of the book. In the fact that the book focuses on Job's daughters to the exclusion of his sons. You'll notice the daughters' names are given. The names are actually almost certainly, there's always a little debate about this, but they're nice names. They're beautiful names. They give us a picture of something beautiful. And not only that, their names are given, the sons are not. And the daughters are described as being remarkably beautiful women, the most beautiful women in the entire land. So the question is, why? Why do we get that information and we're not told anything at all about the sons? Or is the author just interested in really beautiful young women? I don't think that's it. I don't think we can come up with anything by certainty about this. But personally, I find Robert Alter's explanation rather satisfying. So let's see if this works for you. Alter writes, The writer may have wanted to intimate that after all Job's suffering, which included hideous disfigurement, as well as violent loss, a principle of grace and beauty enters his life in the restoration of his fortunes. Thus, the three daughters have names associated with feminine delicacy and the arts of attraction, and they are said to be the most beautiful women in the land. I kind of like that. Can't prove it, but I kind of like that. I think that the emphasis here on the daughters being beautiful is a way of saying God is restoring beauty to Job's life. Well, finally, Job's very long life is also a sign of the Lord's blessing. And I think it reminds us that Job probably lives around the time of Abraham or a bit earlier, right? If you think about how the ages of people and the time of the patriarchs is when they're really starting to come down pretty dramatically. We had other reasons to think this, but the fact that he's going to live either 140 years or 140 years more, that's not entirely clear, suggest time of Abraham maybe a little bit earlier in the story of the Bible. So this is a really old story in terms of when it happens. When it's written, we're not entirely sure. So the Book of Job comes to a close. Hopefully, we've learned something about the greatness of God, the mercy of God, about redemptive suffering, and about living for the age to come. If we walk away from this study merely able to point out how Job's friends got it wrong, we've missed the whole point. The point of this book is not so we can tell other people how they are wrong. The Lord is giving us practical wisdom for how we can comfort those that we care about as they go through dark times and how we can live for the glory of God in the midst of our own personal suffering and pain. This is a good reminder for us. Just because circumstances have changed, oops, going the wrong way here. That's a really bad mistake. Silas, don't do that. I think this is a really important reminder for us that this is a practical book. Biblical wisdom is not like Greek wisdom. Greek wisdom is designed often to be very speculative, not all of it, but some of it is designed to be very speculative. Biblical wisdom is about how we live before God. And so we ought to take away these messages, these lessons from the book, and Not simply have them up here, but we ought to go out into the world and do them. So we ought to pray and think about how we can do that. with some of our own loved ones. We have people in our own lives right now who are suffering. How can we minister to them the grace of God? And let's remember that there's only one good way to minister to people that are suffering, which is to point them to Jesus Christ. That is, we have to talk about redemptive suffering, we have to talk about forgiveness of sins, we have to talk about the resurrection of the dead, and we have to talk about the life of the world to come. Because if we're only making them promises for their life in this world, We're no better than jobs friends.