At the end of Job’s suffering, the narrative turns toward restoration. Among the details given, the naming of his daughters stands out, suggesting more than a simple return to what was lost.
Their names carry meaning, pointing to beauty, inheritance, and renewal. They are not incidental to the story’s conclusion, but part of its testimony.
This essay considers how this moment reflects a deeper restoration, one that extends beyond Job to the life of the believer.
Much talking takes place in the Book of Job. After Job loses everything, including his health, his wife talks to him, three friends speak to him immediately, and another younger friend joins later. Lots of talking. Lots of words. They discuss why this has happened to him and what he should do about it. While their presence is undoubtedly beneficial, their arguments often miss the mark as they go back and forth on the whys and wherefores of “when bad things happen to good people,” a phrase Rabbi Harold Kushner coined in his 1981 bestselling book of the same name. God waits until the end to speak his piece, but then he goes on for four stern chapters. Oddly, though, God does not counter any of their theological arguments. He doesn’t argue with them. After all, he is God!
God’s first words to Job and his friends are, “Who is this that darkens my counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2). He then proceeds to ask them many questions (some count 77), all rhetorical. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:4). Nowhere. “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars?” (Job 39:26). No. “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook?” (Job 41:1). No. God states his power over the earth and its workings, animals and their behavior, and the Leviathan and its dominance, but no counterarguments to Job and his friends are mentioned. In other words, I am the potter, and you are the clay (Jeremiah 18:6). “Is it to inquire of me that you come? As I live, declares the Lord GOD, you will not inquire of me” (Ezekiel 20:3). God need not be questioned.
A chronological Bible puts the Book of Job between chapters 11 and 12 of Genesis. Genesis 11 is about the tower of Babel, which says, “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words, this is only the beginning of what they will do” (Genesis 11:1, 6). Lacking any communication barrier, they could maximize their combined knowledge to engineer a tower to the heavens. But things can go wrong when people talk about the ways of heaven and spiritual matters without God in the conversation.
Elihu, one of Job’s friends, unwittingly points out this error when he suggests, “Let us choose what is right; let us know among ourselves what is good” (Job 34:4). But Isaiah says, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord” (Isaiah 1:18). The Pharisees erred in a similar way when they struggled to answer Jesus’ question, “was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?” (Luke 20:4). Rather than seeking wisdom from God, they “they discussed it with one another” (Luke 20:5) and were unable to answer. God must be included in our conversations about him.
As in Babel, Job and his friends are doing a lot with words, building theological towers instead of physical ones, but self-made towers, nonetheless. When God booms “out of the whirlwind and says: Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2), he arrives to give his input, perspective, and opinion. If God is not in the conversation, we’re guessing, drifting, or worse, intentionally ignoring him. Jeremiah relays God’s opinion of false prophets, “they have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them” (Jeremiah 29:23).
It isn’t that their arguments are unsound or possibly blasphemous, but that they are speaking so confidently about what they think God thinks rather than asking him what he thinks. Job recognizes this problem early on, even in deep despair, when he rebukes his friends: “Will you speak falsely for God and speak deceitfully for him?” (Job 13:7). On the other hand, Job pleads, “I desire to argue my case with God” (Job 13:3). In this realization, Job is distinguished from his friends in their many back-and-forths.
Solomon says, “To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, let your words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:1-2). But, of course, the original one who name-dropped God’s name is Satan in his first appearance. His simple “Did God actually say?” (Genesis 3:1) sets the standard for manipulating God’s name for selfish purposes, and these four words have always been the template used to cast doubt on the truth. It doesn’t deny the truth; it just makes us wonder if the truth is really the truth by casting doubt on the originator of that truth.
When Job gets his chance to speak, he says, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you” (Job 42:5). They spent all this time talking about God, hearing about God, but not seeing God himself working in their lives. Jesus tells his disciples, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!” (Luke 10:21). Job comes to see the personal God.
Job ends his journey as a humbler man, not because he is crushed by tragedy but because he is enlightened about God’s sovereignty through that tragedy. God restores his wealth and blesses him with sons and daughters. Notably, none of his children are named at the beginning of the book, and the sons are not named at the end. However, in an unusual occurrence, his daughters are named at the end of the book. This is contrary to the practice of that time and lends insight into Job’s transformation.
To provide his daughters’ names–especially only their names–breaks sharply with the recording of patriarchal lineages up to this point. For example, sons are identified by name sixty-eight times in the generational records of Adam and Noah just a few chapters earlier, in Genesis 5 and 10, but not once is a daughter named in those lineages. Now, Job not only names his three daughters but “gave them an inheritance among their brothers” (Job 42:15). Considering Job’s unusual decision, let’s consider the significance of their names.
Jemimah means day or calm, for Job has come out of his suffering and now understands the beauty in each new day of God’s sovereignty and the peace found in him, as in “his mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning, great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23). The anxiety and hand wringing, to the point of his wife advising him to curse God, is done. Now, “the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance” (Psalms 16:6).
Keziah or Cassia is from fragrance and spice from the bark of the same tree as cinnamon. It is possibly among the spice gifts the wise men offered the newborn King or the perfume the woman poured on Jesus to prepare him for burial (Matthew 26:12), as “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). So, when Jesus fills our lives with his love, we know his mercy and want to worship him, and we become the “pleasing aroma of Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:15) in the world. Job saw the joy of being in a new relationship with God.
Keren-happuch is the horn of antimony, from which a dark dye in cosmetics makes the eyes appear more prominent. Jeremiah uses this word in describing those who would “enlarge your eyes with paint” (Jeremiah 4:30). Although in that reference, it is about Israel’s seductive enticement of evil, here it is about Job’s eyes being opened in a good way, to the benevolent sovereignty of God. Now he sees God, not just talks about God. God responded by describing his creation and his control over it, providing Job and us a way to see him, as “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalms 19:1, Luke 2:30). Through his suffering and God’s response, Job’s eyes are opened like Simeon’s, who says, upon seeing the infant Jesus, “My eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2:30).
What a change in Job’s perspective. He starts as a fretful man, distant from his children, making just-in-case sacrifices to ward off a distant and maybe/maybe not angry God. But now that uncertainty and legalism are over, Job’s heart is changed, and he is thankful and sincere in his worship without fear. He even breaks tradition and gives his daughters an inheritance. Job learns of a God whose name is not just bandied about in philosophical terms but one who speaks and is personal.
God is no longer an intellectual concept for conversation but a presence around him, filling the space with light, fragrance, and wonder. His perspective of God changes so radically that the deeply held cultural distinctions between sons and daughters, and even between those who will get his inheritance, are erased. Job realizes God is so great and his mercy so deep that it equalizes us all as humble recipients of his grace, including his daughters.
God always has a merciful plan for his fallen creation. As Genesis 11 draws to a close “the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:9), but after Job, in Genesis 12, Abraham’s father takes his family “to go into the land of Canaan” (Genesis 11:31). Job’s experience sets the stage for a significant step forward in God’s plan. He is moving people toward a place he chooses that is not only spiritual but physical as well. It is a plan not based on our own efforts to reach him, as it was with the Tower Babel, but on faith in him alone.
Genesis 12 opens with, “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you’” (Genesis 12:1). Later, when he promised Abraham a people, Abraham “believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). And the rest is history. Job’s emergence from despair into faithfulness and hope set the stage for this event.
In some measure, Job’s journey reflects our journey. It often starts with a crisis in which we feel completely abandoned and alone. We seek answers from family and friends who provide needed and appreciated comfort but arrive at no solutions. But the Psalmist points to another way: “Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me! You have said, Seek my face. My heart says to you, Your face, Lord, do I seek” (Psalms 27:7). And we have what the Psalmist did not have, the Holy Spirit in us. Jesus promised, “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name” (John 14:26). In the end, Job’s friends “showed him sympathy and comfort” (Job 42:11), but our Comforter is so much greater.
Like Jemimah’s calm, the Holy Spirit gives us fruits of joy and peace (Galatians 5:22); like Keziah’s fragrance, the Holy Spirit shines through us for the world to see as it did through Stephen when, “full of the Holy Spirit…his face was like the face of Angel” (Acts 7:55, 6:1); and, like Keren-Happuch’s bright eyes, the “Spirit of truth” will guide us into all truth (John 16:13).
Jesus wants a relationship, not a transaction. His mercy is great when we see his face for the first time, then “his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23). Each day arrives with worries of its own, as Jesus says, and we tend to get wrapped up in them, as Martha did, but Jesus lived this life and knows our concerns. He says, “Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:32-33). Job learns this lesson, and his burden is transformed into joy.
This essay is part of Shadows of Christ: Twelve Essays.
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