When Job Prayed…

When Job prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes. In fact, the LORD gave him twice as much as before!” Job 42:10

As I mentioned previously, this is the second time I’ve read Job in 12 months. Going into it, I was afraid I wouldn’t learn anything new since it was so soon after I had read it. Boy, was I mistaken! Not only did I see Job from a fresh perspective but there were things I missed and verses I don’t remember reading like Job 42:10.  It’s the kind of verse I would’ve underlined or annotated, yet shockingly no such markings were found in my Bible. It must have gotten lost among the other verses, thankfully this time around I found it.  

Job 42

Job 42 is the final chapter. All the loose ends are getting tied up – for the reader anyway, Job still doesn’t know why everything happened. But he has a deeper, more intimate understanding of God than before. It’s the kind of knowledge forged in the fires of hardship and trials. Meanwhile, God’s opinion of Job hasn’t changed. He is still pleased with him, although that can’t be said about everyone.

He’s angry with Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar because of their depiction of Him (their portrayal of God is a topic for another day). The only way to save themselves was to take seven bulls and seven rams, offer them as a burnt offering and have Job pray for them (Job 42:7-8). And this brings us to Job 42:10.

Job 42:10

Initially, I read it as, ‘When Job prayed for his friends, the LORD restored their fortunes.’ That would’ve made sense. Job prays for his friends and they get blessed because of his prayer. But that’s not what’s written. The verse says, ‘When Job prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes.’ It wasn’t his friends who got the blessing, it was Job. 

That intrigued me, not that Job got blessed but that God waited until after he prayed for his friends, to bless him. Why would God do that? He could’ve restored Job’s fortunes at any time, why did He wait?

Why did God wait?

If scripture wasn’t ‘inspired by God’ (2 Tim 3:16-17), we could say it was a mistake…a typo. We could even call it human error. But this is God we’re talking about. He doesn’t make mistakes. He doesn’t do anything willy-nilly or haphazard. Everything He does has a purpose. There’s a reason God waited to restore Job’s fortunes until after he prayed for his friend. So why did God wait? Simply put, there were some lessons they needed to learn. 

Some lessons can be taught in classrooms or learned through reading. Others, however; need to be experienced to be understood. This was the type of lesson that needed to be experienced, that’s why God waited.

Job’s friend’s lesson

Let’s start with Job’s friends. Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar believed Job’s misfortunes were a direct result of his sin. They believed God was punishing him for something he had done and the only way Job could redeem himself was to confess to God and ask for forgiveness. 

Now imagine how much pride they had to swallow when the only way for them NOT to get punished was to approach the man whom they accused of sin. By asking Job to pray for them (before his circumstances changed) was publicly admitting they were wrong, and their ideas about God were also incorrect. 

Job’s lessons

Job’s lesson is a little bit different. Throughout the Book of Job, Job was singularly focused on the why. Why is this happening to him? He’s lived a life of integrity and done nothing wrong, yet he’s experienced one heartbreak after another. Try as he may he can’t figure out the why (even when God answers He never answers the why). Now God asks him to look outside of his own very real…very difficult circumstances and intercede on behalf of his friends. 

Praying for your friends when you haven’t received your healing isn’t easy. It’s hard to look beyond your immediate needs to focus on someone else’s. It made me realize how often my focus and prayers are about me when I’m going through something challenging. I had a bout of food poisoning recently and I can tell you all my thoughts, worries and concerns were about me, there was no space in my brain for anybody else. Yet just because we’re going through difficult times doesn’t mean we should neglect to pray for others.  

But there was another lesson Job needed to learn. Let’s not gloss over the fact Job wasn’t really happy with his friends. Instead of comforting him in his time of need, they condemned him. Praying for his friends was not only altruistic but a means of reconciliation.

Our lesson

Job and his friends learned their lessons. Job 42:12 says ‘…the LORD blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than the beginning.’ He had double the number of livestyle and the Lord blessed him with seven more children. His three daughters were so lovely that Job included them in his will. He lived such a full life that he saw ‘…four generations of his children and grandchildren (Job 42:16).’ Job has lived his life and has been dead for centuries but the lessons we can learn from his story remain. God wasn’t just teaching Job and his friends but us as well. 

There’s one more lesson we can glean from Job 42:10: who benefits from prayer?  This verse points out that WE benefit when we pray for others, even those who’ve oppressed us. This may not translate to material wealth (as was with Job), but we will always be blessed, nevertheless. After all, it wasn’t Job’s friends’ fortunes that were restored when he prayed, it was Job’s.

The last thought I leave with you is that you “[p]ray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. (Eph 6:18 NLT)” Our lives will always be richer for doing so.