Job 42:1 Commentary and Bible Study

Job answered the Lord. True prayer is always an answer to God, always a response to light that God has given, revealing himself and telling us what we could not otherwise know. Constantly we give thanks for Christ in our private and public prayers, and offer up praise in terms of his revelation. Even our needs are expressed as a response. Some circumstance has come into our lives; we don’t come to God as if this terrible thing has happened, and he knows nothing about us or our situation. Job has been silent all this time, listening, benefiting, in a frame of mind to learn from the Lord. He has already repented of his rash words and wished intensely that he had never spoken as he had, yet the Lord has chastised him further with more illustrations of his foolishness until Job is deeply abased. Now he again falls down before the Lord, no longer caring what man thinks of him, but looking to God alone. In what follows there is a tone not only of humiliation but also of wonder, and a certain thrill has entered his being as he learns more of the glorious God with whom he has to do. What does it matter if he has to suffer rebuke, if that means he is brought closer to his heavenly Father, and more intimately in touch with the mystery of his Godhead? Job has a treasure that no one in heaven or earth can take from him. Therefore he too is persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate him from the love of his God.