Job 42:7

Historical Conclusion Epilogue. Job 42:7-17.

JEHOVAH’S ADDRESS TO ELIPHAZ AND HIS FRIENDS. Job 42:7-8.

7. The Lord (Jehovah) said to Eliphaz the Temanite, etc. While Job, penitent in dust and ashes, abhors himself, the three friends, we may imagine like the Pharisee contemplate themselves admiringly and Job’s repentance approvingly. The voice of God startles them from their self-complacency. That voice this time means them. They are the great offenders. They have not spoken to God that which is right. They have compromised the truth by maintaining one-sided dogma (Jesuit-like) for the glory of God. The self-righteousness with which they still tower above Job serves only to draw down the burning wrath of God.

The thing that is right This is to be understood as predicated not of the arguments and positions maintained by Job during the course of the debate, but of the twofold confession made by Job. (Job 40:4, and Job 42:2-6.) Aben Ezra rightly deemed that the commendation “pertains solely to the confession which Job had made unto God and the others had not.” The construction of דבר (piel form) with אלי , spoken concerning me, is precisely that which in the same verse is rendered spoken unto Job, and should have been translated similarly. Yet it is not to be overlooked that the best German exegetes agree in rendering the el, concerning; with exceptions, however, such as Rosenmuller, who follows the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Syriac in reading el, before, in the presence of, and Arnheim and Gesenius, who translate elayi, unto me. Thus also Drusius, Fry, Coleman, Tayler Lewis. The Hebrew, we think, makes this clear: for it is not what Job said of God, but אלי , unto or before (thus Noldius, p. 48) God, which he now commends. The word נכונה , nekonah, rendered right, means also that which stands fast, (Hitzig,) which agrees with the root idea of koun, “to be firm,” “to stand upright.” The same word is used of the day in Proverbs 4:18, and means, according to Gesenius, ( Thes., p. 667,) the stable (part) of the day “the meridian hour, when the sun seems to stand immovable on the height of the heaven.” True humility is the pedestal on which the maturest piety stands, and only can stand.

Delitzsch, with many others, renders the word nekonah, what is correct, and tamely interprets it to “consist of his having denied that affliction is always a punishment of sin, and his holding fast the consciousness of his innocence, without suffering himself to be persuaded of the opposite. That denial was correct, and this truthfulness was more precious to God than the untruthfulness of the friends who were zealous for the honour of God.”

My servant Job The honourable title he bore at the outset of his trial (Job 1:8) is now restored, and four times repeated as he comes forth from the ashes of repentance. The title was also conferred upon Moses (Numbers 12:7) and upon the Messiah. Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 49:6; Isaiah 52:13.