Job and his daughters. Our Friday breakfast/Bible study is in the last chapter of Job. At this culmination, Job finally confesses and repents. Following upon that event, the Lord blesses "the latter part of Job's life more than the first". At verse 12b of Chapter 42, there commences a laundry list of those blessings, starting with the least, beginning with "fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys." Crowning these blessings, however, are "seven sons and [finally] three daughters."

The scripture names none of the sons, but each of the daughters, Jemimah (my Bible says that Jemimah means "Dove"), Deziah ("cinnamon"), and Keren-Hapuch ("container of antimony" - a highly prized eyeshadow). "Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job's daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance, along with their brothers."

How did Job treat his daughters before disaster befell him? Would he have ranked those blessings as they are set out in Chapter 42? Would he have left his daughters an inheritance "along with his sons", a very unusual thing to do in the day and time? Would they be of such importance to Job, relative to his sons, that they would be regarded with the utmost favor and any account of his children would name only them? Did he learn from his disaster to love his daughters for their own sakes, rather than what they could do for him?

What does this say about the state of a father's soul, that he treats daughters as favorably as his sons, if not more so, about a culture that treats its daughters as favorably, about a faith that so favors its women.

"Behold, a virgin shall conceive . . . "

"Greetings, you who are highly favored . . . "