Then Job replied to the Lord: “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 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. “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
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. 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.” So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer.
After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. 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. 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. And he also had seven sons and three daughters. The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. 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.
After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so Job died, an old man and full of years. - Job 42:1-17
"You have not spoken the truth about me..." Twice God hands out this indictment to the friends of Job. It is a bit strange, since from a casual reading of the first 40 chapters of the book of Job, they are mainly accusing Job himself of some hidden sin for which he is now reaping the consequences. But God doesn't say, "You have not spoken the truth about Job..." No. He said, "You have not spoken the truth about me..." About God. They said that God was just and God was all knowing. That seems fair and these are things we would agree with. So what was it that they got wrong?
I'm not sure. But they were sure insistent that Job deserved to be punished. They were sure the only reason that would lead God to act the way that he did was because Job deserved it. But we know, from chapter 1, that there was something else going on in the universe, a conversation between Satan and God and we know from those verses that God had incredible confidence in Job. They presumed that Job must have been guilty because their little minds could not conceive of another reason for God active the way he did and that he would act in a way to punish Job, the most righteous of men. Their little minds were boxing God in, saying that he must act in a certain way. They were telling God how he should act. And God wasn't going to let that stand.
I think that a valuable lesson that I have learned is that God is very creative and possibly delights in solving impossible problems in ways that are (a) consistent with his character and (b) not thought of by even his friends. What God expects is that we expect God to act fully in character but not slaves to our pre-conceived ideas. We know he loves us and that he will act fully in line with that, but how he does it...well that's the genius of God.
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