Such are the changes which have arisen, ere we leave this divine, inspired story. Has not the _trial_ of faith been _precious_, as St. Peter speaks, when we can talk of such changes? The enemy is gone. His ministers, or messengers, the wind and the fire, the Chaldeans and Sabeans, take their commission no more. Job, too, has changed his mind, and made his confession to God--his friends have changed their mind, and humbled themselves to him. But there is One who abides the same. He has no step to retrace, no word to recall, no deed of His hand, or counsel of His heart, to alter or repent of. Other scriptures tell of Him, that He is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever," and that with Him there "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." And this precious tale about Him and His doings so illustrates and exhibits Him. There is never entire calmness, or the absence of all haste and distraction, where we are not conscious that our _strength is equal to our business_, whatever it may be. Nor is there, when we are not equally conscious of _integrity or righteousness in that business_. The consciousness of both righteousness and strength is needed in order to fit the hand to do a deed, or the foot to take a step, with entire ease. Now we know that this ease marks all the ways and operations of God. He is ever at work (to speak after the manner of men) in the full possession of this undistractedness of which we are speaking. We might judge this from the necessary glory of His godhead. But the ways of Jesus on earth always exhibited this, and He, as we know, was God manifest in the flesh. And this ease and calmness, in which all the operations of God proceed, tell us, that though they may to us appear strange and even wilful, as Job thought them, yet is He able to interpret them every one, so as to be justified in His sayings, and clear when He is judged. And this is happy. "The bud may have a bitter taste," and "blind unbelief is sure to err." These things are so. But "God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain." We know how our Job was tried--deeply, variously, and, as might be thought, wantonly, needlessly; for he walked in the fear of God, and in the service of his generation. But "the end of the Lord" is more than vindication. It is display. The trial is found to be unto praise and honour and glory. The light of the coming day, rebuke what it may, will have only to set off and reflect the excellency of Him with whom we have to do. Thus have we lingered, for a little, over these bright notices of millennial days, "the days of heaven upon earth," which shine at the close of this lovely as well as serious and instructive tale of patriarchal times. But there is more.