The Double Portion: Job's Eschatological Inheritance

[Sung Psalm: 91]

“And Job died.”

Some people think that the ending to the book of Job is anticlimactic. After all the debate about unjust suffering, God rewards Job and gives him all this loot. Does Job fear God for no reason? Come on! God gives Job twice as much as he had before!

But do you remember the discussion between God and Satan? Satan had said that if God struck Job, Job would curse God to his face. Now, forty chapters later, Job has remained faithful through all the temptations, and so God has vindicated Job – though you could also say that Job has vindicated God! After all, if Job curses God, then God would have been proved a liar!

The reward and blessing of Job is hardly anticlimactic! It is what you would expect God to do for his faithful servant!

The letdown is not in the reward and blessing of Job. The letdown is in the final verse.

“And Job died.”

Sure, he was an old man, and full of days. He was everything that a man could be. He had triumphed over Satan's assaults – he had endured the cross, and his descent into hell.

But still, Job could not conquer this Leviathan! He could not trample that serpent underfoot.

That task would await the one greater than Job...