And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.
Ver. 10. And the Lord turned again the captivity of Job] He took him out of Satan's clutches, who had hitherto held him prisoner, as it were, in the bands of poverty, sickness, sorrow, contempt, distress, &c. Whether all at once or by degrees God did all this for him, it skills not. Upon his prayers for his friends (which was no small evidence and effect of his piety and charity) it appears that God did all this that followeth for him. So true is that of Solomon, The reward of humility, and of the fear of the Lord is riches, and honour, and life, Proverbs 22:4 .
When he prayed for his friends] According to that of the apostle Paul, Being defamed we pray. This is a high degree of Christian perfection, which but few attain unto, as Merlin here bewaileth it; O raram et singularem virtutem, &c. And another well observeth, That God gives and forgives, according as man forgives his neighbour.
Also the Lord gave Job twice as much, &c.] Understand it both of goods and graces; which though he never parted with, yet by trial and experience he found them much increased. As for outward things, it is nothing unusual for men to recover and recruit as far as God seeth fit.
Multa dies variusque labor mutabilis aevi
Retulit in melius; multos alterna revisens
Lusit, et in solido rursus fortuna locavit
(Virg. Aen. l. 11).
The best way is to hang loose to these things below, not trusting in uncertain riches, but in the living God, 1 Timothy 6:17 , who will be our exceeding great reward, and give to his sufferers a hundred fold here, and eternal life hereafter, Matthew 19:29 . Optanda nimirum est iactura quae lucro maiore pensatur, saith Agricola. It is doubtless a lovely loss that is made up with so much gain. Well might St Paul say, Godliness is profitable to all things, as having the promise of both lives, 1 Timothy 4:8. Well might St Peter call it the divine nature, 2 Peter 1:2. For as God brings light out of darkness, comfort out of sorrow, riches out of poverty, &c., so doth godliness. Let a man, with Job, bear his losses patiently, and pray for his enemies that wrong and rob him, and he shall be sure to have his own again, and more, either in money or money's worth; either in the same or a better thing: contented godliness shall be great gain to him, 1 Timothy 4:6, besides heaven's happiness, which shall make a plentiful amends for all, The Rabbis would persuade us that God miraculously brought back again to Job the selfsame cattle that the Sabeans and others had taken from him, and doubled them. Indeed, his children (say they), therefore, were not doubled unto him, because they perished by their own fault and folly, as one of his friends also told him. But of all this nothing certainly can be affirmed; and they do better who say, That his children being dead in God's favour, perished not, but went to heaven; they were not lost, but laid up; so that before God Job had the number of his children doubled; for they are ours still whom we have sent to heaven before us; and Christ at his coming shall restore them unto us, 1 Thessalonians 4:14. In confidence whereof faithful Abraham calleth his deceased Sarah his dead: "That I may bury my dead out of my sight," Genesis 23:4; and so she is called eight different times in that one chapter, as Paraeus hath observed.