JOB had been overwhelmed and thoroughly humbled. He had said, “I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.” This was the lesson God had been teaching him all along, but he had been slow to learn it. A moral man often can go over his whole life and see little that he calls failure. But let him get into the presence of the Lord and there he learns, as Job did, what he really is, apart from his actions and doings which had blinded him bore. So when Job said, “I am vile,” “I abhor myself,” it shows that he had learned something of himself which he had overlooked before. It is a lesson we all have to learn, if we are to be useful in some way to the Lord. We who have heard the gospel of God’s grace to us and have been constrained to believe, may take a long time to learn what we really are in ourselves in God’s sight.
As soon as Job has learned his lesson and made his confession, all is settled in regards to his standing before God. God addresses not another word to him. But He now turns to Job’s three friends and reproves them, for they had misrepresented God in what they had said. Furthermore, they had not profited from God’s dealings with Job as he had. “Ye have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath,” the Lord said. To what was He referring? Was it Job’s fine speeches that he had made? No, for the Lord had already pronounced His judgment on all that as “words without knowledge.” Doubtless the Lord was referring to Job’s words, “Behold, I am vile; ... I will lay mine hand upon my mouth,” (chapter 40:3-5); and again, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear,... Wherefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes,” (chap. 42:5, 6). It was his humbling himself and taking his true place.
Job’s three friends had listened, all that the Lord had said at the close but they had kept silent. They had humbled themselves; they did not confess what they were as Job had. So God has to put them in their place. The Lord addresses Eliphaz the Temanite who was evidently the oldest. He had first replied to Job and had begun the series of reproaches so wrongfully heaped on him. The Lord said to him “My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends.” We can see that it is a very serious thing not to take our true place before God and to confess what is due to Him.
Therefore the word of the Lord to the three was: “Take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go, to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly.” So they did as they were commanded. The Lord accepted Job and he did pray for his friends. Thus Job became an intercessor and high priest for his friends. He returned good for evil; and this reminds us of the words of the Lord Jesus when He was here: “Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.” Luke 6:2828Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. (Luke 6:28). Then in 1 Timothy 2:1-31I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 3For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; (1 Timothy 2:1‑3) we have the exhortation, “that supplications and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, . . . For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved.”
ML-10/02/1960