11 And all his brothers and sisters, and his friends of earlier days, came and took food with him in his house; and made clear their grief for him, and gave him comfort for all the evil which the Lord had sent on him; and they all gave him a bit of money and a gold ring.
And Job's three friends had word of all this evil which had come on him. And they came every one from his place, Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. So they came together to a meeting-place, in order that they might go and make clear to Job their grief for him, and give him comfort.
He has taken my brothers far away from me; they have seen my fate and have become strange to me. My relations and my near friends have given me up, and those living in my house have put me out of their minds.
Make strong the feeble hands, give support to the shaking knees. Say to those who are full of fear, Be strong and take heart: see, your God will give punishment; the reward of God will come; he himself will come to be your saviour.
Keep in mind those who are in chains, as if you were chained with them, and those who are in trouble, as being yourselves in the body.
And if there is pain in one part of the body, all the parts will be feeling it; or if one part is honoured, all the parts will be glad.
Take part in the joy of those who are glad, and in the grief of those who are sorrowing.
Then he took jewels of silver and jewels of gold and fair robes and gave them to Rebekah: and he gave things of value to her mother and her brother.
When a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his haters be at peace with him.
Did I say, Give me something? or, Make a payment for me out of your wealth? Or, Get me out of the power of my hater? or, Give money so that I may be free from the power of the cruel ones?
He who was near to falling has been lifted up by your words, and you have given strength to bent knees.
And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had taken up from Egypt, they put in the earth in Shechem, in the property which Jacob had got from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for a hundred shekels: and they became the heritage of the children of Joseph.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 42
Commentary on Job 42 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 42
Solomon says, "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof,' Eccl. 7:8. It was so here in the story of Job; at the evening-time it was light. Three things we have met with in this book which, I confess, have troubled me very much; but we find all the three grievances redressed, thoroughly redressed, in this chapter, everything set to-rights.
All this is written for our learning, that we, under these and the like discouragements that we meet with, through patience and comfort of this scripture may have hope.
Job 42:1-6
The words of Job justifying himself were ended, ch. 31:40. After that he said no more to that purport. The words of Job judging and condemning himself began, ch. 40:4, 5. Here he goes on with words to the same purport. Though his patience had not its perfect work, his repentance for his impatience had. He is here thoroughly humbled for his folly and unadvised speaking, and it was forgiven him. Good men will see and own their faults at last, though it may be some difficulty to bring them to do this. Then, when God had said all that to him concerning his own greatness and power appearing in the creatures, then Job answered the Lord (v. 1), not by way of contradiction (he had promised not so to answer again, ch. 40:5), but by way of submission; and thus we must all answer the calls of God.
Job 42:7-9
Job, in his discourses, had complained very much of the censures of his friends and their hard usage of him, and had appealed to God as Judge between him and them, and thought it hard that judgment was not immediately given upon the appeal. While God was catechising Job out of the whirlwind one would have thought that he only was in the wrong, and that the cause would certainly go against him; but here, to our great surprise, we find it quite otherwise, and the definitive sentence given in Job's favour. Wherefore judge nothing before the time. Those who are truly righteous before God may have their righteousness clouded and eclipsed by great and uncommon afflictions, by the severe censures of men, by their own frailties and foolish passions, by the sharp reproofs of the word and conscience, and the deep humiliation of their own spirits under the sense of God's terrors; and yet, in due time, these clouds shall all blow over, and God will bring forth their righteousness as the light and their judgment as the noon-day, Ps. 37:6. He cleared Job's righteousness here, because he, like an honest man, held it fast and would not let it go. We have here,
Job 42:10-17
You have heard of the patience of Job (says the apostle, Jam. 5:11) and have seen the end of the Lord, that is, what end the Lord, at length, put to his troubles. In the beginning of this book we had Job's patience under his troubles, for an example; here, in the close, for our encouragement to follow that example, we have the happy issue of his troubles and the prosperous condition to which he was restored after them, which confirms us in counting those happy which endure. Perhaps, too, the extraordinary prosperity which Job was crowned with after his afflictions was intended to be to us Christians a type and figure of the glory and happiness of heaven, which the afflictions of this present time are working for us, and in which they will issue at last; this will be more than double to all the delights and satisfactions we now enjoy, as Job's after-prosperity was to his former, though then he was the greatest of all the men of the east. He that rightly endures temptation, when he is tried, shall receive a crown of life (Jam. 1:12), as Job, when he was tried, received all the wealth, and honour, and comfort, which here we have an account of.