Job 42:7

The context

Job 42 is the prose epilogue. Job has answered God, and the narrative turns to the three friends. God speaks to Eliphaz and says that anger burns against him and his two companions, because they have not spoken rightly as Job has. They are told to bring offerings and to ask Job to pray for them.

What it establishes

The verse establishes a verdict on the book's central argument. The friends defended God with a system of proportional retribution, and the book has God reject that defense. Job, who protested, is commended. The reversal is the point of the epilogue.

What it does not establish

It does not say every word of Job was right. God has challenged Job's speeches in the whirlwind, and Job has conceded. The verdict is comparative, between Job's way of speaking to God and the friends' way of speaking about him, and what counts as speaking rightly here is debated.

Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.

Cited in these answers

• If God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving, why does he permit starvation, child molestation, rape, torture and genocide? And don't tell me these victims are suffering for Adam's sin.

Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.