§21

JOB’S NEW BEGINNING

21.1
Chapter 42, vv. 10-17

Differing from the verse speeches, the prose Epilogue has the four-letter
divine name YHWH, as in the Prologue, that is, the name rendered Lord
by translators, and Yahweh by modern scholars.
One effect of these last verses may be to release tension in the audi-
ence at the drama, or in a reader, but it would be a mistake to take them
as merely providing a happy ending. The suffering has happened, and
cannot be un-happened. If we see, as James1 seems to, this ending as an
example of God’s mercy, it remains to be asked why mercy could not
have been shown sooner. Clines,2 apparently taking there to be a simple
“happy ending,” sees Job as receiving earthly reward, thus contradicting
the refutation, in the book of Job, of such distributive justice. Clines also
says that the uniqueness of Job’s situation reduces the doctrinal virtue of
the book. Do not poets often show the universal in the unique?
In 42.10 translations referring to the restoration of Job’s fortune
represent a Hebrew sentence of which the literal meaning is: God brought
Job out of exile (idiom as in Ps. 126.1). Wolfers3 holds that the reference
must be to a people, not an individual, and that therefore Job must be a
metaphor for Judah. Gordis4 also notes that this is the only use of the
expression for an individual, and therefore it means restore to the previous
state, not necessarily a literal return from exile. Ibn Ezra5 also reads this
as metaphor, saying that it was at this point that Job was delivered from
the jurisdiction of Satan. In fact Job’s exile has been part metaphor and
part literal fact. He has been exiled from everything of which his life
consisted and which gave it meaning. He has been outside society and his
1 Jas 5.11. 5I O V
QPNPOI@O *X@C ILPV TBUF LBJ UP@ UF MPK ,VSJPV FJEFUF PUJ

QPMV TQMBHYOP K FTUJ=O P

,V SJPK LBJ= PJLUJSNXO “You have heard of the patience of Job,
and have seen the purpose of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.”
2 Cited by Leaman (1995: 236).
3
Wolfers 1995: 69-70.
4 Gordis 1978.
5
Fide Reichert (1958).
224 HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD IN THE BOOK OF JOB

breath has been foul even to his wife (19.17). Chapter 29 gives a sense of
Job’s exile out of society into loneliness.
When the Lord gives Job twice what he had before this is not simply
restoration of material and social life, but the doubling is a positive seal
of approval on the good fortune of Job. The point is that, whether we
describe the catastrophes as tests, as in the Prologue, or a necessary step
towards Job’s further development (and it is both), Job’s life of prosperity
and rectitude was never intrinsically contrary to the divine order.
Therefore the return from exile is lled out in 42.11 with an account of
Job’s restoration to a social existence, bonded by the fellowship of sharing
bread at table. The piece of money, qesitah, is, as Eisemann points out,6
otherwise known only in the story of Jacob (Gen. 33.19). It would seem,
with its echo of the patriarchal age, to be part of the technique, already
noted in comments on the Prologue, for using dissociation from the actual
to imply universality. Peake7 thinks that a qesitah is a token of friendship,
of tri
ing intrinsic value, while Rowley considers it to be uncoined money
(which it would have been in the patriarchal age, as in Abraham’s
weighing out money, Gen. 23.16).
The verses 42.12-17 may have been added after the book of Job was,
in other respects, as we have it now. Berechiah,8 writing in the thirteenth
or fourteenth century, does not comment on them, though we cannot be
sure whether his copy of Job lacked them, or whether we have lost the
end of his commentary. The Aramaic version (Targum)9 also lacks these
verses. Wolfers10 thinks that vv. 12-17 have the quality of over-explicit-
ness. The Septuagint Greek translation, on the other hand, has the verses
as well as material after 42.17.
The numbers in 42.12 are double those before the calamities in
1.13-19. The exactness of the doubling indicates, as Davidson11 points out,
that this is not literally described history; as one Talmudic commentator
puts it, Job never was.12 The Hebrew for seven in 42.13 has a unique form,
and it is not possible to say whether this form ever conveyed a special
shade of meaning. It is noticeable that the numbers of the children are
not doubled. While some aspects of humanity may be quantiable, to
“double” the delight of a human relationship does not require the dou-
bling of the number of relevant human beings. Making the children to be
of the same number as before, while doubling the numbers of each kind

6
Eisemann 1994.
7 Cited by Reichert (1958).
8
Berechiah 1905.
9
Targum (1971), and a study of the Targum by M. Sokoloff, cited by Wolfers (1995:
38).
10
Wolfers 1995: 38, 36.
11 Cited by Reichert (1958).
12
Talmud Bavli 1887, b.BB 15a. (Cf. n. 2, p. 15, 1.1-5.)
 §21 JOB’S NEW BEGINNING 225

of beast, brings out subtly the difference between richness of possessions

and richness of relationships. The writer’s economy of means goes with a
depth of understanding.
In 42.14 the names of the three daughters tell us something about
them. Jemima is an Arabic word for “dove,”13 and the reader of this study
will by now have noticed that the book of Job is rich in Arabic, Egyptian,
and Aramaic loanwords. Kezia is “cassia,” used in the form of powdered
bark, said in the twentieth century to be similar in
avour to cinnamon,14
to which it is botanically related; more relevant perhaps, it was in use as a
component of the incense burnt in the Temple.15 Keren-Happuch is, liter-
ally, “horn of antimony,” the horn being a container and antimony an eye
cosmetic, as in 2 Kgs 9.30. Thus the three women are here named to be
associated with the beauty of loving (as is the dove in Song 2.14; 5.2;
6.9), with the beauty of a sacred odour, and with beauty of face. The
daughters’ names, within the story as a whole, have two connotations to
be remarked. The rst is that, although at least two of the names are good
Hebrew, none of the three is elsewhere found in the Hebrew scriptures,
and this agrees with the Prologue in situating the story in a context that
suggests universality of meaning. The other connotation that may be
remarked is that the choice of names, and their sudden appearance as
family detail, emphasizes brie
y and delicately the restoration of normal,
intimate family life. (In the biblical books it is common for the mother to
name a child, unless the story gives a reason for the father to do this.) The
girls’ names therefore may possibly be seen as an aspect of Job renewed.
Comments on Job’s giving the women inheritance among their breth-
ren have been to the effect that this is contrary to the “ofcial code”16
implied by the story of the daughters of Zelophehad in Num. 27.1-11.17 A
breach of the “ofcial code,” that is, the code attributed to the revelation
on Sinai, could be the writer’s way of bringing in something pre-Mosaic,
and attributable to the patriarchal age.18 However, Job’s provision for his
daughters need not contradict the book of Numbers. The latter is con-
cerned with perpetually inheritable land, reverting at the Jubilee, while
Job’s wealth might well have been divided so that the continuingly
inheritable land went to the eldest son, while all else, including his abun-
dant moveable property, was shared among all ten. The important point

13
BDB 410d. Jewish commentators, such as Rashi, have offered Hebrew derivations
of the name, but these are homiletically interesting rather than philologically convincing.
14
Encyclopedia Britannica (11th edn; 1910–11), 5:458, s.v. “Cassia.”
15
Baraita in Talmud Bavli 1887; b.Ker. 6a.
16 Gordis 1978.
17
Reichert 1958.
18 Wolfers (1995: 73-74) makes this the reason for the writer’s mention of the

inheritance by daughters in this story.

226 HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD IN THE BOOK OF JOB

about securing the daughters’ right to property is that they are independent
in material things, not having to rely on negotiable dowries. Could one
effect of this be to facilitate maintaining relations between each woman
and her brothers and sisters?19
Job’s length of life, 140 years, in 42.16, is comparable with the years
of the patriarchs (Gen. 25.7; 35.28; 47.28; 50.22). The phrase translated
afterward (or similar) at the beginning of the verse must mean that Job’s
140 years begin only here,20 with no number of years given for the whole
of his life. It is as though this is the beginning of his life, a rebirth.
Like Abraham and Isaac (Gen. 25.8; 35.29), Job died old and con-
tented (or full of days) (42.17). The Septuagint Greek adds “And it is
written that he will rise again with those whom the Lord raises up.”21
Jones develops this towards a Christian conclusion. He says that Job
triumphs by meeting God, but
in God’s coming we have a preparation for the Act of God which only the
Incarnation and Resurrection can complete… The number may well be the
same but the children are not the same. Here we can see the inadequacy of all
that falls short of the Christian faith… The drama of Job’s spiritual pilgrimage
reaches the point where we can see that Christianity alone will be able to give
the nal solution.22
Whether either Job, or a Christian, or anybody else, has “the nal solu-
tion,” or whether there is more than one “nal solution,” is beyond the
present writer, who is unsure just what Jones means by “nal” in this
context.

19
Ibid.
20
Metsudat David, in Miqraot Gedolot (1960), considers that this must be the
meaning of the text.
21
LXX expands 42.17: ,BJ= FQFMFV UITFO ’*X@C QSFTCV UFSPK, LBJ= QMI SIK I
NFSX_O
HFHSBQUBJ EF== BVUP@O QB MJO BOBTUI TFTRBJ NFR’ X^O P
,V SJPK BOJTUITJO. “And Job died, an
old man and full of days: and it is written that he will rise again with those whom the
Lord raises up.” After this the LXX has the following, here in the translation of Sir
Lancelot C.L. Brenton, 1851 (http://ecmarsh.com/lxx/Job/index.htm [accessed February
2010]): ‘This man is described in the Syriac book as living in the land of Ausis, on the
borders of Idumea and Arabia: and his name before was Jobab; and having taken an
Arabian wife, he begot a son whose name was Ennon. And he himself was the son of his
father Zare, one of the sons of Esau, and of his mother Bosorrha, so that he was the fth
from Abraam. And these were the kings who reigned in Edom, which country he also
ruled over: rst, Balac, the son of Beor, and the name of his city was Dennaba: but after
Balac, Jobab, who is called Job, and after him Asom, who was governor out of the
country of Thaeman: and after him Adad, the son of Barad, who destroyed Madiam in
the plain of Moab; and the name of his city was Gethaim. And his friends who came to
him were Eliphaz, of the children of Esau, king of the Thaemanites, Balda sovereign of
the Sauchaeans, Sophar king of the Minaeans’ (italics original).
22
Jones 1966: 111, 115.
 §21 JOB’S NEW BEGINNING 227

21.2

Narrative. The poet sets this prose book-end against that at the beginning.
An appreciation of the Epilogue requires the Prologue. There is a
complementarity, but no exact mirroring. Neither could be predicted from
the other. Put them together and they will not make a single whole.
Nevertheless the Epilogue is a perfect answer to the Prologue. Surely this
is the way a poet uses prose.
Psychology. The challenge of a new life is not a happy ending. It is a
rich beginning. Such is the transformation possible when the past provides
an impetus that complements the drawing of events into an unimagined
future. Then the psyche will have turned away from dust and ashes.
Theology. The book of Job warns us not to jump to conclusions. It
implies that reverence is more appropriate to the human condition than is
God-talk. It also tells us that theodicy can verge on cosmic chutzpah.