death.  Kezia means 'fragrant as cassia' (Psa. 45:8) and Keren -happuch 'horn

for paint', indicating rare beauty.  The comment is added:

'And in all the land were no women found so fair as the daughters of

Job' (Job 42:15).

The name of Job's third daughter is prophetic, for the Hebrew word puk,

meaning 'paint', is found in Isaiah 54:11, where we read 'I will lay thy

stones with fair colours'.  The same word is used in 1 Chronicles 29:2, for

the 'glistering' stones there described, anticipating as it does the

splendour of the New Jerusalem, even as the 'painted' face of Jezebel

anticipates the evil parody described in Revelation 17:1 -6.

Moreover Job is said to have lived 'after this' another hundred and

forty years.  If his age was doubled, as the number of his cattle had been,

then Job's total age would have been 280 years.  If, on the other hand, his

age was repeated as the number of his children had been, then he would have

been 70 at the time of his affliction and 70 + 140, namely 210, at the time

of his death.

At the time of Job's experiences, Israel had not come into being, but

the God of Job was also the God of Israel and of the ages.  It is therefore

entirely in harmony with the teaching of Scripture that the experiences of

Job should be echoed by those of Israel.  Thus we notice in the first chapter

of Isaiah that Israel, like Job, is seen covered with incurable sores, and

that in Isaiah 61, in the acceptable year of the Lord, we find this promise:

'For your shame ye shall have double'

'In their land they shall possess the double' (Isa. 61:7).

For the import of these words, see the article on Isaiah (p. 328).

In Job 42:10 we read the words 'the Lord turned the captivity of Job',

and the reader will recognize in this phrase a recurring promise made to

Israel through Moses and the later prophets.  Over and over again we read the

words 'bring into captivity', 'turn again, turn away or turn back captivity',

all of which go back to Job's experience as their original.  If it is true,

that Moses is the one into whose hands the story of Job came, it is

impossible to believe that he could write of Israel's future 'The Lord thy

God will turn thy captivity' (Deut. 30:3) without associating Israel's age -

time experiences with those of Job.  This 'turning again of the captivity' of

Israel is the burden of the Psalmist, 'Oh that the salvation of Israel were

come out of Zion!  When the Lord bringeth back the captivity of His people,

Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad' (Psa. 14:7; cf. 53:6; 85:1 and

126:4).  Jeremiah uses the phrase twelve times over, a number suggestive of

Israel.  Hosea 6:11, Joel 3:1 and Zephaniah 3:20 also should be read.  In the

strictly literal sense of the term Job was never in 'captivity', and in the

prophetic references to the captivity of Israel, much more than physical

bondage or exile is intended.

Did Balaam know the story of Job?  We cannot tell, but he could easily

have been acquainted with the life of this great man of the East, and might

even have had him in mind when he said, 'Let me die the death of the

righteous, and let my last end be like his' (Num. 23:10), for it is the same

word that is translated 'latter end' in Job 42:12.  Prophecy concerning

Israel has much to say concerning 'the last days', 'the latter days' and 'the

latter end'.  Deuteronomy 8 opens with a reference to trials and chastenings,