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"For your shame ye shall have double"
"In their land they shall possess the double" (Isa. 61: 17).
In Job 42: 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 again 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
(Psa. 14: 7; 53: 6; 85: 1 and 126: 4). "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."
Jeremiah uses the phrase twelve times over, a number
suggestive of Israel. Hosea 6: 11, Joel 3: 1 and Zeph. 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"
(Numb. 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". Deut. 8: opens with a reference to trials and chastenings, but it
has in view "good at the latter end" (Deut. 8: 16). "There is hope in thine end", said
Jeremiah to the captivity (Jer. 31: 17). In every way the book of Job is seen to take its
rightful place in the forefront of revealed truth.
By the time that Moses had been raised up to be the deliverer and law-giver of the
chosen people, the testimony of tradition had become distorted and valueless as may be
seen in the vain endeavour of Job's three friends to solve his problem by appeals to that
source. The testimony associated with the stars had become corrupted, the day was
drawing near when a great prophet should be raised up to give to Israel, and through
them, to the world, a written revelation of Truth. Moses opens the book of Genesis with
the sublime words "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". If his own
mind and that of others in Israel to whom he had shown the book of Job upon his return
from the land of Midian had been prepared by the lengthy appeal to the wonders of
creation that occupy the closing chapters of the book of Job, the epitome of Gen. 1: 1
would come with even greater force. To us, who read the book of Genesis and have not
the knowledge supplied by the book of Job the entry of the serpent into Gen. 3: is an
enigma. Moses and those who had read the book of Job would have been prepared for
such initial intrusion and would have seen the attack upon Adam and Eve in the light of
the subsequent attack upon one of the woman's seed.