The Lord God Confronts Job and His Three Friends

Finally, after enduring all of these losses and then having to endure the accusation of his friends, who in many eloquent speeches said to Job that the tragedies which had befallen him were the result of his own sin, God

answered Job saying: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!” (Job 38:2-3).

 

The Lord then began to ask Job question after question, the answers to which no man has. The Lord did this in order to demonstrate that His wisdom and His ways are beyond the comprehension of man, and to make Job understand that he had neither the right nor the wisdom to complain angrily against Him, accusing Him of wrongdoing for all of the suffering and loss that had come into his life. Job then replied to the Lord’s questioning saying:

 

“I know that You can do all things,

And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’

Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”

‘Hear, now, and I will speak;

I will ask You, and You instruct me.’

“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You;

Therefore I retract,

And I repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:2-6)

 

After the Lord had questioned Job, He turned His attention to Job’s three friends. Speaking to one of them, Eliphaz the Temanite, the Lord said: “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to My servant Job, and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves, and My servant Job will pray for you. For I will accept him so that I may not do with you according to your folly, because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.” (Job 42:7-8, emphasis added).

 

In these verses God said twice to Job’s friends that they had not spoken the truth about Him, as His servant Job had done. The three friends considered themselves to be wise men with considerable spiritual understanding, but this was not the case.

 

They possessed no wisdom with which to comfort Job, and they only added to his misery by accusing him of wrongdoing, which they asserted had brought about the troubles that had befallen him. Job had a much greater understanding of the ways of God than his three friends, though he had no idea why God had allowed all of this tragedy to come upon him.

 

The Scriptures do not tell us that Job was ever given insight about the things that had happened to him, and the conversations that had taken place between God and Satan concerning him. He did however come to the place where he understood that God’s wisdom, His ways, and His reasons for events unfolding as they do were far above his own wisdom and ability to comprehend. Job was given the understanding that any questioning of God’s ways or angry accusations about what had happened to him would stem only from an ignorance of the ways and thoughts of God, many of which man was never intended to understand.

 

After Job prayed for his three friends, God restored his fortunes. In fact, God gave him twice as much wealth as he had before, and Job also had seven more sons and three more daughters. After this Job lived to an old age, and the Bible says that he saw his children and his children’s children to the fourth generation.