Lessons from Job’s repentance (3) By Babatunde Olugboji
As we continue our series on Job’s repentance, we read towards the end of the book of Job how God categorically rebuked Job’s three companions: “You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7b) They would definitely have been surprised by this, believing that God agreed with them all along.
The rebuke of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar by God was at the same time an explicit vindication of Job. It was true that in his frustration, stubbornness, and misery, Job said things that he had to repent of. Yet God could still say of him, “as my servant Job has,” putting forth Job as an example of one who spoke what is right. Can God put you forth as a good servant?
Wasn’t it a thing of joy that at the end of the day, Job’s three friends were accepted for Job’s sake, because the LORD had accepted Job. God made Job a mediator to his friends. This must have been a humbling and instructive experience for the friends, and a happy and healing experience for Job.
Instructively, the LORD restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. (Job 42:10) Job was restored and rewarded, when he humbled himself before God, when he brought atonement to his friends and prayed for them. This happened only after Job’s relationship with his friends was restored (when he prayed for his friends).
It would have been a weak restoration if Job’s relationship with Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar remained as contentious and bitter as it was during their debate. The Bible says at some point, all of his brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been his acquaintances before, came to him and ate food with him in his house: Job was once an outcast, even from his own family (as described in Job 19:13-14). Now these relationships have been restored.
It is interesting to notice that they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversity that the LORD had brought upon him, and this was even after his losses were restored. It is worth dwelling on the fact that, even when everything was made right, Job still felt the hurt of his losses, and needed human comfort for them.
They also gave him generous gifts (a piece of silver and each a ring of gold); probably more to honor his greatness than to make it. As one scholar noted, this was “Partly to make up for his former losses, and partly as a testimony of their honorable respect to him.”
We will conclude the series next week.
Have a great week!
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