Job 42:1-17
Divine Providence
1 Then Job replied to the LORD:
2 “I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.’
5 My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”
Epilogue
7 After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. 8 So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer.
10 After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. 11 All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the LORD had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.
12 The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. 15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.
16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17 And so Job died, an old man and full of years.
Job is the all time classic on the Problem of Pain...Why do good people suffer?...We are told in the first chapter of Job, that he was a good man...Job had so many questions for God, while he was suffering...But when Job finally feels the presence of God, he does not get an answer...Instead, Job gets questions from God, in fact, many questions from God...
We learn many things from the Book of Job...One is good people do suffer...Another is God allows suffering...God did not have to let the devil get into Job's life, but He did...In this case of suffering, God does allow it...There are many things that we do not understand, about God...That is because God's wisdom and knowledge are infinite...We really learn about God's wisdom and knowledge and from His questions to Job we learn how many things we don't understand about God...We can learn in life from questions that are ask...God is infinite in knowledge, and we are limited in our knowledge...As we read chapter thirty eight when God comes out of the storm and starts asking His questions, we see His wisdom...As we read and re-read the questions He asks, we see the lack of our knowledge and what truth, wisdom, and knowledge really is...Job, nor any man, can understand the wisdom of God...And how do we learn this?...We learn it from His questions...We learn that we can see wisdom in questions...
Some questions takes a book to write about the answer, to get it right...In His Infinity He is not necessarily obligated to explain everything He knows or has done since the beginning...God has been around since the beginning, since infinity, each individual man has not...Mankind likes short, executive summary type answers, with our short attention spans, and He maybe cannot explain suffering in one generation...It may take more time than that...It may have taken dialog after dialog after dialog with Job for years before he could understand why God allows suffering and evil...Suffering may take one hundred books, or one million books, or even more, to get to the answer... Man cannot understand the complexity of the creation and the world and universe He has created...God is eternally more complex than man...
God, in His questioning of Job, mentions and includes very many questions about animals...We learn from these questions about His animal creations...We see God's love and pleasure of the animal kingdom...He did not simply leave His animals after creation...He loves animals and is still involved in the animal kingdom...
Even though we suffer, God makes life good...God rewarded Job with material wealth, after he has suffered so much...And like we cannot understand why God allowed the evil one to get in Job's life and make it miserable, we can only speculate why God not only gave Job his wealth back, but in fact doubles it...
God is in control...God is over everything...We learn much about His Divine Providence in the end...