When I finished reading through the Book of Job a few days ago, I was intrigued by this detail, as rendered in the ESV: “And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends” (Job 42:10).

God had censured Job’s three friends, saying, “My anger burns against you . . . for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (v. 7). God showed them grace, however, by offering them a way to atone for their sin through Job’s intercession on their behalf: “Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly” (v. 8).

I remembered this part of the narrative, but what I had not noticed before was the potential connection between Job’s praying for his friends and the reversal of his sufferings at the end of the book.

Now, there may not be a direct causal link between the two. In both the NIV and the CSB, the verse reads, “After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes.” Just because B happens after A, that does not necessarily mean that A caused B. But in the NASB, just as in the ESV, there is a “when” instead of an “after”—“The Lord also restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends”—implying simultaneity between the praying and the restoring.

What if Job’s final test was, not only after everything else to endure the cruel suspicion and slander of the friends who ought to have comforted him, but to then obey God’s command to pray for their forgiveness—which would require that he be willing to forgive them himself? This magnanimity is the text’s final proof that Job was who God said he was from the first: “a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil” (1:8, ESV).

Of course, this should remind us of the dying words of the ultimate servant of God who suffered unjustly and was betrayed, denied, and abandoned by his friends. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”