Bible Strands
Job 42:12
So the LORD blessed Job’s latter days more than his first. He owned 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator reports divine action at the close of the story, immediately after Job's relatives and friends have gathered, dined, and given him gifts (42:11). No character speaks; the LORD acts and the text records the result.
The words — ʾakhārit (אֲחֲרִית, "latter part") is the direct object of the blessing — the LORD blessed specifically the latter part of Job's life, measured against rēšītō (רֵאשִיתוֹ, "his beginning"). The contrast is structural, not merely quantitative.
The thread — Bildad's earlier prophecy that "your latter days will flourish" (Job 8:7) is now fulfilled in the narrator's own voice, and the principle echoes in Ecclesiastes 7:8 ("the end of a matter is better than the beginning") and Proverbs 10:22 (the LORD's blessing adds no sorrow).
Why it lands — The verse states that the latter exceeded the first; it does not ask the reader to feel comfort or to draw a moral. It simply reports that the end was greater than the beginning, which is a claim about the shape of the story, not a consolation.
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
So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.
Cross-references
- Job 8:7 Though your beginnings were modest, your latter days will flourish.
- Ecclesiastes 7:8 The end of a matter is better than the beginning, and a patient spirit is better than a proud one.
- Proverbs 10:22 The blessing of the LORD enriches, and He adds no sorrow to it.
- Genesis 24:35 “The LORD has greatly blessed my master, and he has become rich. He has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, menservants and maidservants, camels and donkeys.
- Psalms 144:13 Our storehouses will be full, supplying all manner of produce; our flocks will bring forth thousands, tens of thousands in our fields.
- Genesis 26:12 Now Isaac sowed seed in the land, and that very year he reaped a hundredfold. And the LORD blessed him,
- 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.
- Deuteronomy 8:16 He fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers had not known, in order to humble you and test you, so that in the end He might cause you to prosper.
- Psalms 107:38 He blesses them, and they multiply greatly; He does not let their herds diminish.
- 1 Timothy 6:17 Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be conceited and not to put their hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in God, who richly provides all things for us to enjoy.