458 Philippe Guillaume – Michael Schunck restored the fortunes of Job” (Job 42,10) (4), although the careful listing of assets makes the failure to mention Job’s healing all the more conspicuous. Damage to material possessions, including children, incurred during the first onslaught of tribulations was compensated, but the satan’s second assault left Job with serious after-effects. Ancient readers were aware of the problem and sometimes filled in the blank with descriptions of the circumstances of Job’s healing (5). Yet, the narrator presents something other than a complete restoration, only partially fulfilling the expectations of seeing Job restored to square one raised in the dialogues (6). Job keeps his hand on his mouth (Job 40,4) and fades away as the narrator shifts the focus onto the divine character whose final status is crucial to the purpose of the entire book and to the religious concerns of its audience. 2. Divine Folly Revealed As the final verses of the book describe Job’s material recovery (Job 42,10-17), the attention lingers over the three beautiful daughters and their delicious names. This sugar-coating helps the audience swallow the bitter pills contained in verses 7-9. The key to the Epilogue and possibly to the whole book is found in YHWH’s speech to Eliphaz who is informed that unless he and his friends offer holocausts while Job intercedes for them, YHWH would commit a folly against them (Job 42,8). The syntax of verse 8 presents some difficulties although the meaning of hlbn µkm[ twç[ is clear: “to do with you a folly”. The different translations result from the translators’ uneasiness with the obvious meaning of the words. Comparing Job’s wife to foolish women (twlbn Job 2,10) and attributing folly to the outcasts (lbnAynb Job 30,8) poses no problem to translators who are (4) S. TERRIEN, Job (Neuchâtel 1963) 272-273. (5) The Testament of Job is conscious of the problem and mentions the healing at the beginning of YHWH’s answer to Job (TestJob 47,5-6, quoting Job 38,3; 40,7). As he challenged Job to gird himself like a man, God supplies magic girdles that heal Job right then. Job then bestows the girdles to his daughters as inheritance: P. MACHINIST, “Job’s Daughters and their Inheritance in the Testament of Job and its Biblical Congeners”, The Echoes of Many Texts (eds W.G. DEVER – E.J. WRIGHT) (Atlanta 1997) 76. The Quran does not state that Job was healed (38,41-43). In later tradition, Job is cured in the river that flowed where he stomped his foot. See J.-F. LEGRAIN, “Variations musulmanes sur le thème de Job”, Bulletin d’études orientales 37-38 (1985-1986) 51-114. (6) G. WILSON, “Preknowledge, Anticipation and the Poetics of Job”, JSOT 30 (2005) 246.