JOB 40, 41 and 42
Today the Book of Job draws to a close. The Lord singles out two of his creatures for special attention: the Behemoth and the Leviathan. Much speculation has been made on what these creatures were, whether mythical, or everyday animals such a hippo and crocodile, or perhaps related to long-extinct dinosaurs. Interpretation is driven as much by your scientific beliefs as your biblical understanding. It is true that Behemoth, as described, resembles a huge diplodocus-type creature with its massive legs and belly, and its heavy, lengthy tail; its total size makes it the first amongst the works of God. It apparently ate vegetation, not meat. The Leviathan, on the other hand was clearly carnivorous, dragon-like, and unbelievably frightening, yet also graceful and fearless. It seemed equally home on land or in the water. God’s point is simply: Job, you are in awe of these animals, and yet I made them and control them!
Again, Job takes the hint and repents of his presumption in speaking of things he had no hope of understanding, therefore admitting that the Lord is totally sovereign. God forgives Job and then distinguishes between Job’s truthfulness and his friends’ arrogance – but allows Job to pray for those friends (no mention of Elihu) to be forgiven too. Significantly, praying for others – even the truly underserving – was the key to Job’s own restoration, as God healed him and restored to him a replacement family and greater wealth (double the number of livestock that he started out with). Then 42:16 tells us that “After this Job lived 140 years and saw his children and their children to the fourth generation”, which gives an insight into Job’s age at his death. Jewish tradition holds that Job’s latter years were twice his former years before the time of testing, given that God doubled all his possessions; this would mean that he was around 70 years old at the time the Book of Job begins, and died at the age of 210. Most scholars believe that Job would have lived just before the time of Abraham; Terah, Abraham’s father lived to the age of 205, so Job’s age is consistent with that era.
It is very comforting to realise that God’s idea of restoration is to give you much more than you had lost in the first place – that is another feature of his grace! The Bible always seems to ‘compress’ time to better emphasise its message; in reality, the full restoration of God’s servant would have taken 40-50 years; so we must avoid expecting an instant ‘fix’ on every occasion. Finally, Job died, old and happy, having seen the births of his great grandchildren. The phrase “full of years” has the joyful sense of our lives storing up precious time that has been spent in the presence and service of the Lord, valuable to God, and preserved in eternity.
The role of this great book, then, is to attempt to explain suffering.
- It creates in us Christlike character;
- It draws us closer to the Lord and He to us;
- It is a test of our trust in the Living God;
- It is a malfunction in a broken world;
- God has already been through these sufferings with us and knows how it feels;
- It is an opportunity for honesty and confession, for drawing closer to one another;
- We realize that God is totally sovereign and loves every aspect of his creation, so it inspires us to call on him for mercy, confident that he hears us.
- And we know that one day, we will be changed to be like Jesus, and our bodies transformed to be like his glorious body, ready to rule and to live with Him in the New Heavens and New Earth. So…
“Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).
The Big Picture 