Bible Strands
Job 42:8
So now, take seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. Then My servant Job will pray for you, for I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken accurately about Me, as My servant Job has.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD addresses Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar in the final divine speech of the book, issuing a command that follows his rebuke in verse 7.
The words — קְחֽוּ (kechu, "take") opens the command in the plural imperative, and אֵילִים ('elim, "rams") marks the specific animal that ties this scene to Balaam's altar.
The thread — The identical pairing of seven bulls and seven rams appears in Numbers 23:1, where Balaam's sacrifice is accepted and he speaks what God puts in his mouth. The pattern of the righteous praying for the wayward recurs in Genesis 20:17 (Abraham for Abimelech) and James 5:16.
Why it lands — The verse makes correction a physical act: go, slaughter, then stand and let another man pray for you. It asks the reader to accept that being wrong about God is not merely an intellectual error but a moral one requiring submitted action and dependence on the righteous.
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
Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you after your folly, in that ye have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like my servant Job.
Cross-references
- Numbers 23:1 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build for me seven altars here, and prepare for me seven bulls and seven rams.”
- James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.
- Genesis 20:17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech and his wife and his maidservants, so that they could again bear children—
- 1 Chronicles 15:26 And because God helped the Levites who were carrying the ark of the covenant of the LORD, they sacrificed seven bulls and seven rams.
- Job 22:30 He will deliver even one who is not innocent, rescuing him through the cleanness of your hands.”
- Psalms 103:10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins or repaid us according to our iniquities.
- Ezekiel 14:14 then even if these three men—Noah, Daniel, and Job—were in it, their righteousness could deliver only themselves, declares the Lord GOD.
- Numbers 23:29 Then Balaam said, “Build for me seven altars here, and prepare for me seven bulls and seven rams.”
- 2 Chronicles 29:21 They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah. And the king commanded the priests, the descendants of Aaron, to offer them on the altar of the LORD.
- Job 42:9 So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the LORD had told them; and the LORD accepted Job’s prayer.