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#15.
The Goal of the Ages foreshadowed.
pp. 46 - 48
The book of Job contains in dramatized form the problem of the ages, and in the
opening and closing chapters, the key to the enigma is supplied. We who read the
complete book, have the advantage of Job and of his friends, for we see that Job's trouble
arose, not so much from his own doings or circumstances, but from the enmity that is
inherent between the two seeds. Satan is seen attacking Job, whose name actually means
"The Attacked". God's permission of the evil endured by Job was, as we learn, limited.
His life could not be touched. We have also seen that there are two essential features in
this great outworking of the Divine purpose. Patience, "Ye have heard of the patience of
Job" and End, "and have seen the end of the Lord". The fact that Job received "double"
for all his sufferings and loss is stressed at the close of the book. In the first chapter he is
said to have had "seven sons and three daughters", he also possessed 7,000 sheep,
3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen and 500 she asses. In chapter 42: we learn that the
Lord turned the captivity of Job, and gave him twice as much as he had before. The Lord
blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning, and he had 14,000 sheep,
6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 she asses (10, 12). The number of his
children was not doubled, but he was given seven sons and three daughters as at the
beginning. The names given to the three daughters suggest that Job had been entirely
delivered from the loathsome disease that had been inflicted upon him for Jemima
probably means "as the day" betokening Job's emergence from the shadow of death.
Kezia means "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 Isa. 54: 11, where we read "I will lay thy stones with fair colours".
The same word is used in I Chron. 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 system described in Rev. 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 Isa. 61: in the acceptable year of the Lord, we find this
promise: