"… the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42:10).
Matthew Henry says of Job’s restoration that perhaps the “extraordinary prosperity” with which he “was crowned … after his afflictions was intended to be to us Christians a type and figure of the glory and happiness of heaven, which the afflictions of this present time are working for us, and in which they will issue at last; this will be more than double to all the delights and satisfactions we now enjoy, as Job’s after-prosperity was to his former, though then he was the greatest of all the men of the east. He that rightly endures temptation, when he is tried, shall receive a crown of life (James 1:12), as Job, when he was tried, received all the wealth, and honor, and comfort, which here we have an account of.”
God not only restored Job materially, but He healed him spiritually. One of Job’s sorest complaints had been that God appeared to be against him. But now God plainly appeared for him and watched over him to build and to plant, just as he had watched over him to pluck up and to throw down (Jer. 31:28). This cast a new brightness over everything he did, and all things looked as pleasing and promising as before it had looked gloomy and frightful. This was how it had been for David, who had wasted away under God’s heavy hand, his bones groaning within him, but once he found forgiveness in God, he felt the freedom of standing in the glorious presence of God and lifting praises to His name in the assembly.
The blessings God poured out on Job superseded his former prosperity. “He suffered for the glory of God, and therefore God made it up to him with advantage and allowed him more than interest upon interest,” Henry wrote. Though we might suffer greatly in this life, God has promised that the suffering we endure now cannot compare to the glory that will be revealed to us in heaven. Jesus taught that those who give up everything in this life to follow Him will reap a hundred times more in the life to come. And like the daughters of Job, who normally would not have received an inheritance among their brothers, Christians will be named as coheirs with their elder Brother, Christ Jesus. With Him, they will rule over the heavens and earth in a position of nobility and honor on into eternity.
Read Romans 8:1–17. If you are a Christian, what is your position in Christ? What is your relationship to God? What is your hope for the future? How should these truths affect how you live from day to day? Throughout the weekend, praise God for the blessings He gives to His children and for the hope you have in Christ Jesus.
