42:10 So the Lord 1 restored what Job had lost 2 after he prayed for his friends, 3 and the Lord doubled 4 all that had belonged to Job. 42:11 So they came to him, all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they dined 5 with him in his house. They comforted him and consoled him for all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver 6 and a gold ring. 7
42:12 So the Lord blessed the second part of Job’s life more than the first. He had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.
1 tn The paragraph begins with the disjunctive vav, “Now as for the
2 sn The expression here is interesting: “he returned the captivity of Job,” a clause used elsewhere in the Bible of Israel (see e.g., Ps 126). Here it must mean “the fortunes of Job,” i.e., what he had lost. There is a good deal of literature on this; for example, see R. Borger, “Zu sub sb(i)t,” ZAW 25 (1954): 315-16; and E. Baumann, ZAW 6 (1929): 17ff.
3 tn This is a temporal clause, using the infinitive construct with the subject genitive suffix. By this it seems that this act of Job was also something of a prerequisite for restoration – to pray for them.
4 tn The construction uses the verb “and he added” with the word “repeat” (or “twice”).
5 tn Heb “ate bread.”
6 tn The Hebrew word קְשִׂיטָה (qÿsitah) is generally understood to refer to a unit of money, but the value is unknown.
sn The Hebrew word refers to a piece of silver, yet uncoined. It is the kind used in Gen 33:19 and Josh 24:32. It is what would be expected of a story set in the patriarchal age.
7 sn This gold ring was worn by women in the nose, or men and women in the ear.