Job enjoys peace with God again. However, the dispute between him and his friends still hangs in the air. Is Job suffering for his sin? Or is he an innocent sufferer? Finally, God delivers the verdict: innocent!

God addresses Eliphaz, since he is the leader of the three friends. There is no mention of the last speaker, Elihu. It is Job’s three friends that God is angry with.

This is a dramatic reversal. The three friends have all the while been warning Job against God’s anger. Now they discover that it is they who have angered God. They have not spoken of [him] what is right. They have reduced his ways to a predictable formula. In their attempts to defend him, they have denied his power, wisdom and sovereignty.

Let us take warning from God’s words to Eliphaz. We are not free to say whatever we want about God, even if we think that our ideas are divinely inspired (Job 4:12–17)!

To be justified by God has been Job’s greatest longing and his certain hope (Job 19:25–29). Finally, his longing is fulfilled. Four times in Job 42:7–8, God calls Job my servant. Twice in these same verses, God says that Job has spoken of him what is right.

How has Job spoken right of God? We can think of at least five ways:

• He has confessed God’s sovereignty (Job 1:21; Job 2:10; Job 40:4–5; Job 42:2–3).

• He has confessed God’s unfathomable wisdom (Job 28:1–28). Job refused to reduce God’s wisdom to a predictable set of rewards and punishments.

• He holds on to his own innocence, instead of making a false confession of sin.

• He trusts in God’s righteous judgment. Even while Job agonized over many questions regarding God’s justice, he firmly believed that God’s justice would be revealed in the end (Job 16:18–19; Job 19:26).

• He endures in the faith. Up to this point, there has been now sign of improvement in Job’s circumstances. However, he has not let go of his faith in God. In this way, he has proved Satan wrong (Job 1:9–11; Job 2:4–5).