Job 42:17 Komentář

Solomon says, "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof," Ecc 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. I. It has been a great trouble to us to see such a holy man as Job was so fretful, and peevish, and uneasy to himself, and especially to hear him quarrel with God and speak indecently to him; but, though he thus fall, he is not utterly cast down, for here he recovers his temper, comes to himself and to his right mind again by repentance, is sorry for what he has said amiss, unsays it, and humbles himself before God (Job 42:1-6). II. It has been likewise a great trouble to us to see Job and his friends so much at variance, not only differing in their opinions, but giving one another a great many hard words, and passing severe censures one upon another, though they were all very wise and good men; but here we have this grievance redressed likewise, the differences between them happily adjusted, the quarrel taken up, all the peevish reflections they had cast upon one another forgiven and forgotten, and all joining in sacrifices and prayers, mutually accepted of God (Job 42:7-9). III. It has troubled us to see a man of such eminent piety and usefulness as Job was so grievously afflicted, so pained, so sick, so poor, so reproached, so slighted, and made the very centre of all the calamities of human life; but here we have this grievance redressed too, Job healed of all his ailments, more honoured and beloved than ever, enriched with an estate double to what he had before, surrounded with all the comforts of life, and as great an instance of prosperity as ever he had been of affliction and patience (Job 42:10-17). 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.

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 42 This chapter contains Job's answer to the last speech of the Lord's, in which he acknowledges his omnipotence, and his certain performance of his purposes and pleasure; owns his own folly and ignorance, and confesses his sins; for which he abhorred himself, and of which he repented, Job 42:1; it also gives an account of the Lord's decision of the controversy between Job and his friends, blaming them and commending him above them; and ordered them to take sacrifices and go to Job and offer them, who should pray for them and be accepted, which was done, Job 42:7; and it closes with a relation of the great prosperity Job was restored unto, in which he lived and died, Job 42:10.

Scripture reports God increased by half all of Job’s things, except for the children. It is evident, therefore, that the length of his life was also increased by a half. If he had lived 170 years when he was delivered from that calamity, it appears that he lived for 85 years more to the end of his life, that is, for the number of years that is the half of 170. Now, if you add 85 years to the 170 years he had lived before, you have a sum of 255. Actually Scripture declares that Job lived 248 years, therefore those 7 years that are not included in the sum were the years of his temptation. And with good reason they were not counted, because they appear to belong to a period of death more than life.

If it is true that Moses knew Job, why did he never mention him in any of his works? It is evident that [Job] lived before the law, because we know that in every time, in every place and in every person, the knowledge of God exists without the need of a human instruction, as is attested by [Job’s] friends, who composed a high doctrine on God. Evagrius says, … There is no time in which virtue did not exist, nor a time in which it will not exist.

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 he said, "Therefore, I had empty months." (7:3) So his long life indicates his abundance both of the goods of fortune and the goods of grace, which led him to the future glory which endures for ever and ever. Amen.

Job humbles himself before God, Job 42:1-6. God accepts him; censures his three friends; and commands Job to offer sacrifices for then, that he might pardon and accept them, as they had not spoken what was right concerning their Maker, Job 42:7-9. The Lord turns Job's captivity; and his friends visit him, and bring him presents, Job 42:10, Job 42:11. Job's affluence becomes double to what it was before, Job 42:12. His family is also increased, Job 42:13-15. Having lived one hundred and forty years after his calamities, he dies, Job 42:16, Job 42:17.

Job died, being old and full of days - He had seen life in all its varieties; he had risen higher than all the men of the East, and sunk lower in affliction, poverty, and distress, than any other human being that had existed before, or has lived since. He died when he was satisfied with this life; this the word שבע seba implies. He knew the worst and the best of human life; and in himself the whole history of Providence was exemplified and illustrated, and many of its mysteries unfolded. We have now seen the end of the life of Job, and the end or design which God had in view by his afflictions and trials, in which he has shown us that he is very pitiful, and of tender mercy, Jam 5:11; and to discern this end of the Lord should be the object of every person who reads or studies it. Laus in excelsis Deo! Both in the Arabic and Septuagint there is a considerable and important addition at the end of the seventeenth verse, which extends to many lines; of this, with its variations, I have given a translation in the Preface. At the end of the Syriac version we have the following subscription: - "The Book of the righteous and renowned Job is finished, and contains 2553 verses." At the end of the Arabic is the following: - "It is completed by the assistance of the Most High God. The author of this copy would record that this book has been translated into Arabic from the Syriac language." "Glory be to God, the giver of understanding!" "The Book of Job is completed; and his age was two hundred and forty years." "Praise be to God for ever!" So closely does the Arabic translator copy the Syriac, that in the Polyglots one Latin version serves for both, with the exception of a few marginal readings at the bottom of the column to show where the Syriac varies.

JOB'S PENITENT REPLY. (Job 42:1-6) In the first clause he owns God to be omnipotent over nature, as contrasted with his own feebleness, which God had proved (Job 40:15; Job 41:34); in the second, that God is supremely just (which, in order to be governor of the world, He must needs be) in all His dealings, as contrasted with his own vileness (Job 42:6), and incompetence to deal with the wicked as a just judge (Job 40:8-14). thought--"purpose," as in Job 17:11; but it is usually applied to evil devices (Job 21:27; Psa 10:2): the ambiguous word is designedly chosen to express that, while to Job's finite view, God's plans seem bad, to the All-wise One they continue unhindered in their development, and will at last be seen to be as good as they are infinitely wise. No evil can emanate from the Parent of good (Jam 1:13, Jam 1:17); but it is His prerogative to overrule evil to good.

full of days--fully sated and contented with all the happiness that life could give him; realizing what Eliphaz had painted as the lot of the godly (Job 5:26; Psa 91:16; Gen 25:8; Gen 35:29). The Septuagint adds, "It is written, that he will rise again with those whom the Lord will raise up." Compare Mat 27:52-53, from which it perhaps was derived spuriously. Next: Psalms Introduction

17 And Job died, old, and weary of life. In the very same manner Genesis, Gen 25:8, Gen 35:29, records the end of the patriarchs. They died satiated of life; for long life is a gift of God, but neither His greatest nor His final gift. A New Testament poet would have closed the book of Job differently. He would have shown us how, becoming free from his inward conflict of temptation, and being divinely comforted, Job succumbs to his disease, but waves his palm of victory before the throne of God among the innumerable hosts of those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. The Old Testament poet, however, could begin his book with a celestial scene, but not end it with the same. True, in some passages, which are like New Testament luminous points in the Old Testament poem, Job dares to believe and to hope that God will indeed acknowledge him after death. But this is a purely individual aspiration of faith - the extreme of hope, which comes forth against the extreme of fear. The unravelment does not correspond to this aspiration. The view of heaven which a Christian poet would have been able to give at the close of the book is only rendered possible by the resurrection and ascension of Christ. So far, what Oehler in his essay on the Old Testament Wisdom (1854, S. 28) says, in opposition to those who think the book of Job is directed against the Mosaic doctrine of retribution, is true: that, on the contrary, the issue of the book sanctions the present life phase of this doctrine anew. But the comfort which this theologically and artistically incomparable book presents to us is substantially none other than that of the New Testament. For the final consolation of every sufferer is not dependent upon the working of good genii in the heavens, but has its seat in God's love, without which even heaven would become a very hell. Therefore the book of Job is also a book of consolation for the New Testament church. From it we learn that we have not only to fight with flesh and blood, but with the prince of this world, and to accomplish our part in the conquest of evil, to which, from Gen 3:15 onwards, the history of the world tends; that faith and avenging justice are absolutely distinct opposites; that the right kind of faith clings to divine love in the midst of the feeling of wrath; that the incomprehensible ways of God always lead to a glorious issue; and that the suffering of the present time is far outweighed by the future glory - a glory not always revealed in this life and visibly future, but the final glory above. The nature of faith, the mystery of the cross, the right practice of the care of souls, - this, and much besides, the church learns from this book, the whole teaching of which can never be thoroughly learned and completely exhausted.