Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”
God has spoken to Job, and Job has repented in dust and ashes. Now God turns to Job's three friends. His anger falls on them, and His remedy puts the sacrifice in their hands and the prayer in the mouth of the man they had accused.
Why God's anger fell on the friends
They claimed to speak properly. What God objected to was how they used true words against a man He cared about.
William KellyGod felt gravely about men who claimed to speak properly but completely failed to apply the truth of God to the case… Things that are true, yet misunderstood and misapplied, may do more harm than many a thing that is false. Misapplied truth gives the apparent authority of God to an error, and that error carries all the more weight because it comes as the truth… If someone uses the truth of God wrongly — if he applies it to crush a person God is deeply concerned about at that time — how foreign and offensive to His mind!
There was also what they did not say. Job had taken God's words to heart; they said nothing.
William KellyWhy did God speak to Eliphaz? He noticed that none of these three men said a word. They did not profit by it as Job did. If they had, they would have joined Job and said, "O Lord, forgive our folly; we have sinned not only against You, but against our dear friend Job." But no, they held their tongues, as so many people do when they are very wrong.
What Job had spoken rightly
Job said many rash things during the long debate. God's approval rests on his last words.
William KellyJob's mistakes are obvious enough. Where then was the thing that was right? … He said the right thing when he humbled himself completely before God… Job said what was right in his last words, when he answered the Lord's appeal to him. There God brought him into His own presence… Job justified God at his own expense. He no longer asserted his own righteousness. He owned his own nothingness and vileness in dust and ashes before God, whom he admits without reserve to be perfectly right.
The distinction God draws is narrow and precise, and one writer insists it is not about who read the situation correctly.
Frederick W. GrantAll of them, Job included, had erred in the interpretation of God's dealings, if that were all; and on that account, first Elihu becomes interpreter for Him, and then God Himself speaks. But Job had spoken rightly of God; and his friends had not.
Seven bulls, seven rams, one burnt offering
The number of animals and the kind of offering both matter.
The Christian's FriendThey had sinned, so they needed a sacrifice. Otherwise the Lord must have dealt with them according to their folly. Only the burnt offering He prescribed here could spare them from such dealing… He commanded them to bring seven bulls and seven rams, and the whole formed only one burnt offering. One sacrifice was enough in God's eyes; it was not to be repeated.
Why a burnt offering, and not a sin offering? The date of these events explains it.
William KellyAt this time it does not appear that there were sin offerings. This is a strong sign of the very early date of the book, or rather of the events recorded in it. It must have been before the law. Under the law of Moses a sin offering would of course have been offered. But before the law set out its careful and detailed rules for what sin required, people regularly brought the burnt offering.
The man they accused becomes their priest
God does not simply forgive the three men. Their way back runs through a sacrifice, and through Job.
F. B. HoleThey were to act in a way that did two things. First, it bore witness to sacrifice as the only ground on which sinful men may deal with God. Second, it humbled them, because they had to ask for the prayers of the very man they had been accusing and slandering. They were to be the humble applicants, and Job was to act as a priest of God!
The same pattern appears in the New Testament, where one believer prays for another who has sinned.
J. N. DarbyIf the sin is not a sin to death, and the brother has not repented of it, it may still lead to his being cut off, taken away with a stroke. Then prayer is to be made, and his life will be spared… So, in Job 42:8, Job's intercession turns aside the effect of God's displeasure.
The prayer that restored Job
Job's own restoration came at the moment his heart turned toward the men who had hurt him most.
William KellyHe did not only turn their punishment away when Job prayed. He turned Job's own captivity when his heart went out on their behalf… His heart was active in grace. He had seen grace, and now he showed grace — and this for the very people who had wounded him most. No one in the world had wounded Job as his three friends had.
Summary
- Wrong speech. God's complaint was not about religious talk in the abstract. It was about true words misapplied to crush a man He cared about.
- Right speech. The words God approved were Job's last ones. He judged himself and justified God at his own expense.
- Sacrifice first. The seven bulls and seven rams made one burnt offering. Without it God would have dealt with them according to their folly.
- Accepted person. Their forgiveness came through Job. The man they had accused became the man who prayed for them.
- Grace returned. God turned Job's captivity at the very moment he prayed for the men who had wounded him most.