A handful of posts ago I raised some questions about the book of Job. I finished that book last week and may have had some of my questions answered. I say "may" because I didn't get out any of my Bible commentaries. This is just my perception of the text.
[I currently have a sleeping baby on my chest, so I apologize that coordinating verses are not included in this post. It's really better if you look it up anyways. You learn more that way!]
So, my big beef with the book of Job was the fact that when his wealth and children were taken away... he was then given back double. Now, to preface this, there are several stories in the Bible that I imagine the way I learned them in Sunday School. Think flannel graph! I also learned a lot of Bible stories via SuperBook videos. So in my mind I can see the last image where Job is surrounded by lots of land, livestock, and smiling children. This equates itself in my brain to him having 14 sons and 6 daughters to replace the 7 sons and 3 daughters he lost.
In the last chapter of Job, the text {ESV} reads that God "restored" Job's wealth and children. Not that he replaced them or had them anew, these things were restored. It lists that Job had 7 sons and 3 daughters. Could this mean that his original children were no longer deceased? Did God raise them from the dead to honor Job? Possibly. He could have conceived 10 new children with his wife, that is highly possible. A good Bible commentary probably would answer this question more specifically with the original meanings and contexts of the passage in the original language. But I kind of like thinking it through on my own.
Either way, the Lord did not replace Job's children. Having sacrificed his one and only Son, he knows that children cannot be replaced. He restored to Job all that was his.
I no longer have to be upset over the thought that Job's original children were without merit.
More proof that the Word of the Lord is alive and moving. I have read the book of Job more times than many of the other book in the Bible. But somehow I can't wrap my mind around the ending of this story. I keep reverting back to the flannel graph depiction my inner child remembers. God uses this story to keep me thinking and to teach me of his grace and mercy.
