(Imagine their amazement: Job complains about God, they stick up for God, they know they're right; then God shows up and says, "No, Job was right.")

God says that if Job will pray for them, he will forgive them. We can guess that Job and his friends had a very interesting conversation. He prays. God forgives.

Then, in the final words the writer tells something we would tend to miss even though ancient readers would catch it. He tells us that Job had more children, then he gives names of Job's daughters, but not of his sons. In Hebrew genealogies that was unprecedented and unheard of. What's more, they are strange names. The subject of names in the Bible is worth a book on its own; they are vital expressions of human character and divine intent.

Usually Hebrew names are very serious; they express a character virtue or theological truth. But the names of Job's daughters are all about beauty. Jemima means "dove," considered a particularly lovely bird. The second daughter is named Keziah, which means "cinnamon," a prized spice. But the clincher is daughter number three: Keren-happuch, which means "horn of eye-shadow." Job named her after makeup. It's as if you named your daughter Estee Lauder or Maybelline.

Not only that, but Job gives them an inheritance. In the ancient, male-dominated world, a father with seven sons would never dream of leaving anything to a daughter. There might not be enough left over.

Sons were strategic. Sons were obligated to care for parents in their old age. Daughters were not strategic. Money that went to daughters would be used to care for their husbands' fathers; it was like putting money in somebody else's pension fund.

So why does the writer include this part of the story? Because now Job delights in and gives to the least strategic creatures. Now he is gratuitously good. He is uncontrollably generous. He is irrationally loving. He gives for no reason at all. Does this remind you of anybody?

Satan was dead wrong about old Job. The central question in Job is, can a human being hold on to God and faith and love even in the dead of winter?

One can. One did.

Job could not see the upper stage. Job did not know that his faithfulness had meaning beyond his wildest dreams. He did not know that something cosmic and eternal was at stake in his transitory life.

Sitting on an ash heap; scraping boils off his skin with shards of broken and discarded pots; feeling broken, sick, mocked, confused, and hopeless — Job discovered what people in pain sometimes learn better than anyone else. He was not alone after all. Not even in winter.

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From God is Closer Than You Think by John Ortberg. Copyright ©2005 by John Ortberg. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishers.

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