Job 42:9-17

42:9 So they went, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, and did just as the Lord had told them; and the Lord had respect for Job. ¹ 

42:10 So the Lord ²  restored what Job had lost ³  after he prayed for his friends, ⁴  and the Lord doubled ⁵  all that had belonged to Job. 42:11 So they came to him, all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they dined ⁶  with him in his house. They comforted him and consoled him for all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver ⁷  and a gold ring. ⁸ 

42:12 So the Lord blessed the second part of Job’s life more than the first. He had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. 42:13 And he also had seven sons ⁹  and three daughters. 42:14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, ¹⁰  the second Keziah, ¹¹  and the third Keren-Happuch. ¹²  42:15 Nowhere in all the land could women be found who were as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance alongside their brothers.

42:16 After this Job lived 140 years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 42:17 And so Job died, old and full of days.

[42:9]  ¹ tn The expression “had respect for Job” means God answered his prayer.

[42:10]  ² tn The paragraph begins with the disjunctive vav, “Now as for the Lord, he….”

[42:10]  ³ sn The expression here is interesting: “he returned the captivity of Job,” a clause used elsewhere in the Bible of Israel (see e.g., Ps 126). Here it must mean “the fortunes of Job,” i.e., what he had lost. There is a good deal of literature on this; for example, see R. Borger, “Zu sub sb(i)t,” ZAW 25 (1954): 315-16; and E. Baumann, ZAW 6 (1929): 17ff.

[42:10]  ⁴ tn This is a temporal clause, using the infinitive construct with the subject genitive suffix. By this it seems that this act of Job was also something of a prerequisite for restoration – to pray for them.

[42:10]  ⁵ tn The construction uses the verb “and he added” with the word “repeat” (or “twice”).

[42:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “ate bread.”

[42:11]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew word קְשִׂיטָה (qÿsitah) is generally understood to refer to a unit of money, but the value is unknown.

[42:11]  ⁸ sn This gold ring was worn by women in the nose, or men and women in the ear.

[42:13]  ⁹ tn The word for “seven” is spelled in an unusual way. From this some have thought it means “twice seven,” or fourteen sons. Several commentators take this view; but it is probably not warranted.

[42:14]  ¹⁰ sn The Hebrew name Jemimah means “dove.”

[42:14]  ¹¹ sn The Hebrew name Keziah means “cassia.”

[42:14]  ¹² sn The Hebrew name Keren-Happuch means “horn of eye-paint.”