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Jobchapter 42

17 verses · KJVJob book hub →

Key verse

And 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.

It stands in scene B of the chapter, verses 7 to 9.

The chapter

Chapter summary

Job answers Jehovah and the case closes: 'I know that thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of thine can be restrained… things too wonderful for me, which I knew not' (42:2-3). The turn is not information but sight: 'I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes' (42:5-6). Then the unexpected verdict, to Eliphaz: 'ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.' Job prays for his accusers, and Jehovah turns his captivity: flocks doubled, seven sons, three daughters named Jemimah, Keziah, and Keren-happuch. James points here for 'the patience of Job' (James 5:11).

Context

Poetry · Unknown · Job overview

Where the chapter sits

Job 42 falls in Twofold repentance and prose epilogue (chapters 42). ''Now mine eye seeth thee'' (42:5); the friends' theology condemned (42:7); Job's restoration: doubled.

Twofold repentance and restoration. ''Now mine eye seeth thee''; the friends' theology condemned; Job's doubled restoration.

Before it: YHWH speaks from the whirlwind, chapters 38–41.

The whole shape of Job

The world behind this chapter

Job 42
When
The patriarchal age (traditional view), the verdict and the restoration · Setting c. 2000-1800 BC; Job lives 140 years after this and sees four generations
Where
The ash heap, then Job's rebuilt household with the family gathered in it
Who first heard it
Hearers who needed to know how the story ends, and what God finally said about the argument

The history

Job's answer is short. He repents in dust and ashes, the material he has been sitting on for the whole book, and says the line the book has been driving at: I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. He does not confess to the crimes the friends invented. He withdraws his demand for a hearing, having received something better than a verdict.

The rest of the history, and what it meant to them

God's judgment on the argument is then given in plain words, and it goes the way nobody in the story expected. To Eliphaz: my wrath is kindled against thee and thy two friends, for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. The men who defended God are found guilty of misrepresenting him; the man who complained is called right.

Their remedy is patriarchal to the core. Seven bulls and seven rams, offered by the friends themselves, with Job praying for them, a large sacrifice, and no priest and no sanctuary anywhere in view, exactly as in chapter 1. The last thing Job does before his own restoration is intercede for the men who tormented him, and the text says the LORD accepted Job and turned his captivity when he prayed for his friends.

The restoration details are dating evidence in themselves. His brothers and sisters come and eat with him and each gives him a qesitah, an archaic unit of value that appears in only two other places in the whole Old Testament, both patriarchal, Jacob buying ground at Shechem and the same purchase recalled in Joshua. Nobody using a later Hebrew vocabulary would have reached for that word. His livestock is doubled, he has seven sons and three daughters again, and the daughters are named, Jemima, Kezia, and Keren-happuch, and given an inheritance among their brothers, which was unusual enough that hearers would have caught it. He dies old and full of days, having seen his sons to the fourth generation.

What it meant to them

The ending has troubled readers for centuries, because giving a bereaved father new children does not replace the ten he buried, and the book knows it. What the chapter actually asserts is narrower and harder: God is not the mechanism the friends described, Job was right to keep talking to him, and the accuser's question, whether anyone loves God for nothing, has been answered by a man on an ash heap who had nothing left.

For the first hearers the practical charge was in the sacrifice. God's servant is the one who prays for the people who broke him, and the restoration is dated from that prayer.

Sources cited

  • Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament
  • John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
  • Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job

Every work MannaFest builds on →

A. Job: I Had Heard of Thee: but Now Mine Eye Seeth Thee

1. (vv. 1-3)

a.Then Job answered: the Lord, and said opens the reply the whirlwind speeches were driving toward, and the words that follow answer God's own charge at 38:2, who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge, turned into Job's own confession: who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not. Henry notes that Job takes God's rebuke and makes it his own indictment rather than defending his earlier words. I know that thou canst do every thing states in six words the thesis the two whirlwind speeches spent building, and Barnes reads the confession as answering Job's demand to audit his suffering rather than the suffering itself.

Job 42:1, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.

Job 42:1

After the Lord reproved Job for his intemperate speech which seemed to smack of pride because he asserted that he was just so much that it seemed to some people to lead to the derogation of divine justice, Job humbly answers considering himself convinced. First, …

Thomas Aquinas· written before 1274· Commentary on Jobpatristic

Job 42:2, 3 voices

Job 42:2

I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no thought is hid from Thee. 2. For against his huge strength he observed; I know that Thou canst do all things; but against his hidden machinations he subjoined; And no thought is hid from Thee.

Job 42:2

I know that thou canst do everything - This is said by Job in view of what had been declared by the Almighty in the previous chapters. It is an acknowledgment that God was omnipotent, and that man ought to be submissive, under the putting forth of his infinite power. One great object of the address of the Almighty was to convince Job of his majesty, and that object was fully accomplished. And that no thought - No purpose or plan of thine. God was able to execute all his designs.

Job 42:2

Job here owns his judgment convinced of the greatness, glory, and perfection of God, from which would follow the conviction of his conscience concerning his own folly in speaking irreverently to him.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Job 42:3, 3 voices

Job 42:3

Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? For Leviathan hides counsel without knowledge, because, though he is concealed from our infirmity by many frauds, he is yet disclosed to us by the holy inspiration of our Protector. He hides counsel without knowledge, because though he escapes the notice of those who are tempted, yet he cannot escape the notice of the Protector of the tempted.

Job 42:3

Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? - This is repeated from Job 38:2. As used there these are the words of the Almighty, uttered as a reproof of Job for the manner in which he had undertaken to explain the dealings of God; see the notes at that verse. As repeated here by Job, they are an acknowledgment of the truth of what is there implied, that “he” had been guilty of hiding counsel in this manner, and the repetition here is a part of his confession.

Job 42:3

Most men in confessing sin palliate rather than confess. Job in omitting "by words" (Job 38:2), goes even further than God's accusation. Not merely my words, but my whole thoughts and ways were "without knowledge." too wonderful--I rashly denied that Thou hast any fixed plan in governing human affairs, merely because Thy plan was "too wonderful" for my comprehension.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed

2. (vv. 4-6)

a.Hear, I beseech thee: , and I will speak echoes Job's own demand at 13:22, call thou, and I will answer, now granted in reverse as he answers the summons put to him. I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee draws the line the whole book has walked toward, secondhand report exchanged for sight. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes joins the confession to a phrase Scripture gives to only two men, Abraham before the three visitors at Genesis 18:27 and Job himself already at 30:19, and Delitzsch reads the same posture closing the book that Abraham's plea opened. Gill notes that the ashes Job sat in at 2:8 become, at the last, the ashes he repents in.

Job 42:4, 3 voices

Job 42:4

Hear, and I will speak; I will question Thee, and answer Thou me. 4. To hear, is, with us, to adapt our ear which is in one place to a sound which comes from another. But with God, on the other hand, to Whom nothing is external, hearing is properly for Him to perceive our longings which are rising up beneath Him.

Job 42:4

Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak - This is the language of humble, docile submission. On former occasions he had spoken confidently and boldly of God; he had called in question the equity of his dealings with him; he had demanded that he might be permitted to carry his cause before him, and argue it there himself; Notes, Job 13:3, and notes Job 13:20-22. Now he is wholly changed.

Job 42:4

Now he is brought to the prayer Elihu taught him, That which I see not teach thou me. He puts himself into the posture of a penitent, and therein goes upon a right principle. In true repentance there must be not only conviction of sin, but contrition and godly sorrow for it, sorrow according to God, 2 Cor. vii.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Job 42:5, 3 voices

Job 42:5

I have heard Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee. 5. By these words he doubtless plainly declares, that as far as sight is superior to hearing, so far does the progress also he had made through suffering differ from that which he was before. And because he had beheld more plainly the light of truth with the eye within, he more clearly discerned and beheld the darkness of his humanity.

Job 42:5

JEHOVAH had spoken, Job had trembled. The Lord had revealed Himself, Job had seen Him. Truly, God did but display the skirts of His robe and unveil a part of His ways. But therein was so much of ineffable glory that Job laid his hand upon his mouth in token of his silent consent to the claims of the Everlasting One. God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind concerning the greatness of His power, the wonders of His workings, the splendor of His skill, the infinity of His wisdom.

Job 42:5

Hearing and seeing are often in antithesis (Job 29:11; Ps 18:8). seeth--not God's face (Ex 33:20), but His presence in the veil of a dark cloud (Job 38:1). Job implies also that, besides this literal seeing, he now saw spiritually what he had indistinctly taken on hearsay before God's infinite wisdom.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed

Job 42:6, 2 voices

Job 42:6

Wherefore I reproach myself. 6. For the less a person sees himself, the less is he displeased with himself; and the more he discerns the light of greater grace, the more blameworthy does he acknowledge himself to be. For when he is elevated within, by all that he is, he endeavours to agree with that standard which he beholds above him. And because human weakness still impedes him, he perceives that he differs therefrom in no slight degree, and every thing within him is burdensome, which does not agree with that inward standard.

Job 42:6

I abhor myself - Compared with thine, my strength is weakness; my wisdom, folly; and my righteousness, impurity. “I loathe myself when thee I see; And into nothing fall.” Repent - I am deeply distressed on account of the imaginations of my heart, the words of my tongue, and the acts of my life. I roll myself in the dust, and sprinkle ashes upon my head.

B. Jehovah Rebukes the Three Friends, and Job Prays for Them

1. (vv. 7-8)

a.And it was so: , that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job turns from Job's answer to God's ruling on the whole debate, and the ruling names names: my wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends, Eliphaz the Temanite standing for Bildad and Zophar as well. For ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath sets true words in a friend's mouth, 5:13 among them, the one Job verse the New Testament quotes, against a false case, which is the charge the speech-attribution rule reads directly off this verse. The title my servant Job, given four times across the book at 1:8 and 2:3 before the trial and now twice here, closes untouched by everything the friends said against him, and Henry notes that the offering God requires of them is accepted only through the very man they came to correct.

Job 42:7, 4 voices

Job 42:7

But after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, He said to Eliphaz the Themanite, My anger is kindled against thee and thy two friends, because ye have not spoken before Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job. 9. O Lord, the sentence of Thy judgment declares how much our blindness is at variance with the light of Thine uprightness. Behold, we know that in Thy judgment blessed Job is victorious, whom we believed to have sinned against Thee by his words.

Job 42:7

And it was so, that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job - Had the matter been left according to the record in Job 42:6, a wholly erroneous impression would have been made. Job was overwhelmed with the conviction of his guilt, and had nothing been said to his friends, the impression would have been that he was wholly in the wrong. It was important, therefore, and was indeed essential to the plan of the book, that the divine judgment should be pronounced on the conduct of his three friends.

Job 42:7

Their spirit towards Job was unkindly, and to justify themselves in their unkindliness they used false arguments (Job 13:7); (namely, that calamities always prove peculiar guilt); therefore, though it was "for God" they spake thus falsely, God "reproves" them, as Job said He would (Job 13:10). as . . .

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed

Job 42:7

Ye have not, &c. - This is not to be understood absolutely, but comparatively. Job was not so much to be blamed as they, because his opinion concerning the methods of God's providence, and the indifferency of its dispensations towards good and bad men was truer than theirs, which was, that God did always reward good men and punish sinners in this life.

John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical

Job 42:8, 4 voices

Job 42:8

Take unto you seven bulls, and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a whole burnt offering. But My servant Job shall pray for you; his face I will accept, that folly be not imputed to you. 11. Behold the just and merciful God neither passes over their faults without reproof, nor yet leaves their guilt without conversion. For since He is our inward Physician, He first made known the corruptions of our wound, and afterwards pointed out the remedies for obtaining health.

Job 42:8

Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks, and seven rams,.... Creatures used in sacrifice before the giving of the Levitical law, Gen 4:4; and the same number of the same creatures were offered by Balaam in the country of Moab, not far from where Job lived, nor at any great distance of time from his age, Num 23:1; and among the Gentiles in later times (q).

Job 42:8

Take - seven bullocks and seven rams - From this it appears that Job was considered a priest, not only in his own family but also for others. For his children he offered burnt-offerings, Job 1:5; and now he is to make the same kind of offerings, accompanied with intercession, in behalf of his three friends. This is a full proof of the innocence and integrity of Job: a more decided one could not be given, that the accusations of his friends, and their bitter speeches, were as untrue as they were malevolent.

Job 42:8

Job plainly lived before the legal priesthood, &c. The patriarchs acted as priests for their families; and sometimes as praying mediators (Ge 20:17), thus foreshadowing the true Mediator (1Ti 2:5), but sacrifice accompanies and is the groundwork on which the mediation rests. him--rather, "His person [face] only" (see on Job 22:30).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed

2. (v. 9)

a.So Eliphaz the Temanite: and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went names each friend obeying the command the wager never let Job overhear, seven bullocks and seven rams offered while Job stands to pray for them. And did according as the Lord commanded them shows three men who had spoken wrongly of God kept as friends still, God restoring the relationship through Job's intercession rather than through any repentance the text records from them. The Lord also accepted Job closes the verse on the very word that opened the book's contest, whether God accepts a man for nothing, and here Gill notes God accepts him for another's sake as well as his own.

Job 42:9, 2 voices

Job 42:9

The Lord also accepted Job - Margin, as in Job 42:8, “the face of.” The meaning is, that he accepted his prayers and offerings in behalf of his friends.

Job 42:9

Accepted Job - And as Job prayed and offered sacrifice for those who had grieved and wounded his spirit, so Christ prayed and died for his persecutors, and ever lives, making intercession for transgressors.

John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical

C. Jehovah Turns Job's Captivity and Blesses His Latter End

1. (v. 10)

a.the Lord turned the captivity: And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends borrows the exile-restoration formula the law already carries at Deuteronomy 30:3 and the Psalms carry again at 126:1 and 126:4, used here of one man's fortunes rather than a nation's. When he prayed for his friends ties the turning to the very act the ruling of verse 8 commanded, so the restoration follows intercession rather than preceding it. Also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before opens the doubling the rest of the chapter counts out in cattle, and Delitzsch reads the figure against the law of restitution a thief owed his victim, Job repaid as though the loss itself had been a debt.

Job 42:10, 3 voices

Job 42:10

The Lord turned the captivity of Job - The Vulgate has: Dominus quoque conversus est ad poenitentiam Job; “And the Lord turned Job to repentance.” The Chaldee: “The Word of the Lord (מימרא דיי meymera dayai) turned the captivity of Job.” There is a remark which these words suggest, which has been rarely, if at all, noticed. It is said that the Lord turned the captivity of Job When He Prayed for His Friends.

Job 42:10

THE LORD turned the captivity of Job.” So, then, our longest sorrows have a close, and there is a bottom to the profoundest depths of our misery. Our winters shall not frown for ever; summer shall soon smile. The tide shall not eternally ebb out; the floods retrace their march. The night shall not hang its darkness for ever over our souls; the sun shall yet arise with healing beneath his wings,—“The Lord turned again the captivity of Job.” Our sorrows shall have an end when God has gotten his end in them.

Job 42:10

SINCE God is immutable, He acts always upon the same principles and, therefore, His course of action in the olden times to a man of a certain sort will be a guide as to what others may expect who are of like character. God does not act by caprice, nor by fits and starts. He has His usual modes and ways. The Psalmist David uses the expression, "Then will I teach transgressors Your ways," as if God had well-known ways, habits and modes of action. And so He has, or He would not be the unchangeable Jehovah.

2. (v. 11)

a.Then came there unto him: all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before answers the estrangement catalogue of 19:13-19 name for name, the brethren and the acquaintance who had made themselves strange now returning to his table. Every man also gave him a piece of money is the qesitah, a word the King James renders nowhere else in the Old Testament but Genesis 33:19, and Delitzsch and Gill both read the gift as capital toward the flocks the next verse counts. They bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him credits the suffering to God rather than to the accuser the reader alone has seen, which Gill notes keeps the frame's own vocabulary of 2:10 consistent to the end.

Job 42:11, 3 voices

Job 42:11

But there came to him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all that knew him before, and did eat bread with him in his house, and moved the head over him. 23. What is designated by the eating of bread but charity, and what by the moving of the head but admiration? But it is well subjoined, And comforted him over all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him. For to console the grief of one that had been smitten, is to rejoice with him on his pardon after he had been smitten.

Job 42:11

Then came there unto him all his brethren ... - It seems remarkable that none of these friends came near to him during his afflictions, and especially that his “sisters” should not have been with him to sympathize with him. But it was one of the bitter sources of his affliction, and one of the grounds of his complaint, that in his trials his kindred stood aloof from him; so in Job 19:13-14, he says, “He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.

Job 42:11

But it is from the Arabic kasat, "weighed out" [UMBREIT], not coined; so Ge 42:35; 33:19; compare with Ge 23:15, makes it likely it was equal to four shekels; Hebrew kashat, "pure," namely, metal.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed

3. (vv. 12-13)

a.So the Lord blessed: the latter end of Job more than his beginning states the doubling in the patriarchal currency the book has kept throughout, fourteen thousand sheep and six thousand camels and a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand she asses, each figure twice the count chapter 1 gave. He had also seven sons and three daughters restores the family's number exactly rather than doubling it, and Henry and Wesley both read the children as multiplied rather than lost, the first seven and three still alive to God though dead to Job, a second seven and three given besides. The wealth counted in livestock rather than coin keeps the setting the book opened in, a patriarch's household measured the way Abraham's and Jacob's were.

Job 42:12, 3 voices

Job 42:12

So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning,.... Which verified the words of Bildad, Job 8:6; though they were spoken by him only by way of supposition.

Job 42:12

Just double to what they were, chap. i, 3. This is a remarkable instance of the extent of the Divine providence, to things that seem minute as this, the exact number of a man's cattle; as also of the harmony of providence, and the reference of one event to another: for known unto God are all his works, from the beginning to the end.

John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical

Job 42:12

Of a wicked man it is said, His last state is worse than his first ( Luke xi. 26 ), but of the upright man, His end is peace; and sometimes the nearer it is the clearer are the views of it.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Job 42:13, 2 voices

Job 42:13

And he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses; and he had seven sons, and three daughters. 36. That he had had seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, before the trial of his scourging, the preface of this same history points out to us. Those things which were lost through his scourging, were now restored twofold. But as many children were restored as he had lost. For he had seven sons and three daughters.

Job 42:13

He had also seven sons and three daughters - The same number which he had before his trials. Nothing is said of his wife, or whether these children were, or were not, by a second marriage.

4. (vv. 14-15)

a.And he called the name: of the first, Jemima; and the name of the second, Kezia; and the name of the third, Keren-happuch names three daughters where the sons of the chapter go unnamed, the only daughters given names anywhere in the book. And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of Job pairs beauty with the next clause's substance, their father gave them inheritance among their brethren, a phrase the King James uses nowhere else in the Old Testament but Deuteronomy 18:2, of the Levites' own portion within Israel. Gill reads the inheritance as the note worth keeping, daughters granted a portion alongside seven brothers in an age when a daughter's portion was not assumed, and Clarke adds that the naming itself, unusual in a genealogy this brief, marks them as Job's own particular delight.

Job 42:14, 3 voices

Job 42:14

And he called the name of one Dies, and the name of the second Casia, and the name of the third Cornustibii. 43. Because these names are derived from virtues, the translator appropriately took care not to insert them as they are found in the Arabic language, but to shew their meaning more plainly when translated into the Latin tongue. For who can be ignorant that Dies and Casia are Latin words?

Job 42:14

The name of the first Jemima - ימימה yemimah, days upon days. Kezia - קציעה ketsiah, cassia, a well-known aromatic plant. And, Keren-happuch - קרן הפוך keren happuch, the inverted or flowing horn, cornucopiae, the horn of plenty. The Chaldee will not permit these names to pass without a comment, to show the reason of their imposition: “He called the first Jemimah, because she was as fair as the day; the second Ketsiah, because she was as precious as cassia; the third Keren-happuch, because her face was as splendid as the emerald.” Cardmarden’s Bible, 1566, has the Hebrew names.

Job 42:14

The next Kezia, a spice of a very fragrant smell, because (says bishop Patrick) God had healed his ulcers, the smell of which was offensive. The third Keren-happuch (that is Plenty restored, or A horn of paint ), because (says he) God had wiped away the tears which fouled his face, ch. xvi.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Job 42:15, 2 voices

Job 42:15

And their father gave them inheritance among their brethren - This is mentioned as a proof of his special regard, and is also recorded because it was not common. Among the Hebrews the daughter inherited only in the case where there was no son, Num 27:8. The property was divided equally among the sons, with the exception that the oldest received a double portion; see Jahn’s “Bib. Arch.” section 1

Job 42:15

In the Old Testament we often find women praised for their beauty, as Sarah, Rebekah, and many others; but we never find any women in the New Testament whose beauty is in the least taken notice of, no, not the virgin Mary herself, because the beauty of holiness is that which is brought to a much clearer light by the gospel.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

5. (vv. 16-17)

a.After this lived Job: an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even four generations gives the patriarchal lifespan the book has kept throughout, a span counted the way Genesis counts Abraham's and Jacob's years. So Job died, being old and full of days closes the book with the formula Scripture gives Abraham at Genesis 25:8, a death named as fullness rather than loss. James 5:11 reads the whole span in one sentence from outside the book, ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, endurance and outcome held together, which Davidson reads as the New Testament's own verdict on the thirty-nine chapters of complaint that came before it.

Job 42:16, 4 voices

Job 42:16

But Job lived after these scourges a hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons' sons, even to the fourth generation, and he died an old man, and full of days. 47. In Holy Scripture a person is not easily recorded as 'full of days,' unless he is one whose conduct is praised in the same Scripture. For he is in truth void of days, who, even if he has lived ever so long, has wasted the time of his life in vanity.

Job 42:16

After this lived Job a hundred and forty years - How long he had lived before his afflictions, we cannot tell. If we could rely on the Septuagint, all would be plain, who add here, Τα δε παντα ετη εζησεν, διακοσια τεσσαρακοντα; “And all the years that Job lived were two hundred and forty.” This makes him one hundred years of age when his trial commenced. Coverdale has, After this lyved Job forty yeares, omitting the hundred. So also in Becke’s Bible, 15

Job 42:16

The Septuagint makes Job live a hundred seventy years after his calamity, and two hundred forty in all. This would make him seventy at the time of his calamity, which added to a hundred forty in Hebrew text makes up two hundred ten; a little more than the age (two hundred five) of Terah, father of Abraham, perhaps his contemporary.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed

Job 42:16

As God appointed to Adam another seed instead of that which was slain ( Gen. iv. 25 ), so he did to Job with advantage. God has ways to repair the losses and balance the griefs of those who are written childless, as Job was when he had buried all his children.

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan

Job 42:17, 2 voices

Job 42:17

We are to understand that this prosperity lasted until his death, and so the text says, "and he died an old man," which expresses his duration of life, "and full of days," which expresses the prosperity of his life. He indicated his adversity already when …

Thomas Aquinas· written before 1274· Commentary on Jobpatristic

Job 42:17

So Job died, being old and full of days - Having filled up the ordinary term of human life at that period of the world. He reached an honored old age, and when he died was not prematurely cut down. He was “regarded” as an old man.

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Job 42. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on 11 works. Open for the list.

This page draws on A. B. Davidson, The Book of Job, Cambridge Bible; Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Charles Spurgeon; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XXXV; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley; Matthew Henry and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.

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