Bible Strands
Job 42:10
After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his prosperity and doubled his former possessions.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator reports the book's resolution: after the three friends obey the LORD's command (v.9) and Job prays for them, Yahweh acts. This is the final divine statement in the narrative.
The words — The Hebrew does not say "restored his prosperity" but שָׁב אֶת שְׁבוּת אִיּוֹב (shav et shevut Iyyov), literally "he turned back the captivity of Job." The root שׁוּב (shuv, "to turn back") paired with שְׁבוּת (shevut, "captivity/exile") is the idiom used for Israel's return from national exile.
The thread — Deuteronomy 30:3 uses the same שׁוּב/שְׁבוּת construction for God's promise to restore Israel from the nations. Job 8:6 also promises restoration to the upright, though the friends deploy it prematurely and wrongly.
Why it lands — The text ties Job's restoration causally to his intercession for his friends, not to his own suffering or innocence. A reader is asked to notice that the stated mechanism here is prayer for others, not endurance of pain.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 30:3 then He will restore you from captivity and have compassion on you and gather you from all the nations to which the LORD your God has scattered you.
- Job 8:6 if you are pure and upright, even now He will rouse Himself on your behalf and restore your righteous estate.
- Proverbs 22:4 The rewards of humility and the fear of the LORD are wealth and honor and life.
- Isaiah 40:2 “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her forced labor has been completed; her iniquity has been pardoned. For she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins.”
- Isaiah 61:7 Instead of shame, My people will have a double portion, and instead of humiliation, they will rejoice in their share; and so they will inherit a double portion in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs.
- Psalms 14:7 Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come from Zion! When the LORD restores His captive people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad!
- Psalms 126:1 A song of ascents. When the LORD restored the captives of Zion, we were like dreamers.
- Job 1:3 and he owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large number of servants. Job was the greatest man of all the people of the East.
- Acts 7:50 Has not My hand made all these things?’
- Numbers 12:2 “Does the LORD speak only through Moses?” they said. “Does He not also speak through us?” And the LORD heard this.