Job 42:10

10 And Jehovah turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends; and Jehovah increased everything that Job had possessed to the double. רעהוּ is to be understood generally, as Job 16:21, and the בּ signifies not "because," but "when." The moment in which Job prayed for his friends became, as the climax of a life that is well-pleasing with God, the turning-point of glory to him. The Talmud has borrowed from here the true proverb: תחלה כל־המתפלל בעד חברו נענה, i.e., he who prays for his fellow-men always finds acceptance for himself first of all. The phrase (שׁבית) שׁוּב שׁבוּת signifies properly to turn captivity, then in general to make an end of misery; also in German, elend, old High Germ. elilenti, originally signified another, foreign country (vid., Psalter, ii. 192), since an involuntary removal from one's native land is regarded as the emblem of a lamentable condition. This phrase does not exactly stamp Job as the Mashal of the Israel of the Exile, but it favoured this interpretation. Now when Job was recovered, and doubly blessed by God, as is also promised to the Israel of the Exile, Isa 61:7 and freq., sympathizing friends also appeared in abundance.

You have heard of the patience of Job (says the apostle, Jam 5:11) and have seen the end of the Lord, that is, what end the Lord, at length, put to his troubles. In the beginning of this book we had Job's patience under his troubles, for an example; here, in the close, for our encouragement to follow that example, we have the happy issue of his troubles and the prosperous condition to which he was restored after them, which confirms us in counting those happy which endure. Perhaps, too, the extraordinary prosperity which Job was crowned with after his afflictions was intended to be to us Christians a type and figure of the glory and happiness of heaven, which the afflictions of this present time are working for us, and in which they will issue at last; this will be more than double to all the delights and satisfactions we now enjoy, as Job's after-prosperity was to his former, though then he was the greatest of all the men of the east. He that rightly endures temptation, when he is tried, shall receive a crown of life (Jam 1:12), as Job, when he was tried, received all the wealth, and honour, and comfort, which here we have an account of. I. God returned in ways of mercy to him; and his thoughts concerning him were thoughts of good and not of evil, to give the expected (nay, the unexpected) end, Jer 29:11. His troubles began in Satan's malice, which God restrained; his restoration began in God's mercy, which Satan could not oppose. Job's sorest complaint, and indeed the sorrowful accent of all his complaints, on which he laid the greatest emphasis, was that God appeared against him. But now God plainly appeared for him, and watched over him to build and to plant, like as he had (at least in his apprehension) watched over him to pluck up and to throw down, Jer 31:28. Thi…

42:10 Job’s fortunes probably included his health (42:16-17). God created humans in order to bless them, not curse them.