Job's plaintive appeal to his friends for compassion in his sufferings soars like a song from the depths into a firm declaration of faith in him who saves. "Goel" - a Hebrew word meaning a kinsman who supports and avenges him, redeems him from bondage and debt, that is, a redeemer who comes forward as witness and judge. In other words, Job believes in a God who may not take notice immediately, but who will surely come down to earth as his vindicator and vouch for his innocence.

In the midst of his anguish, Job's faith is striking because it comes from the innermost being of his better self, and it remains untarnished. His faith in God's goodness while he was still miserable is part and parcel of the educative process of suffering.

It is perhaps this process that Jesus wants His seventy-two disciples (symbolic of the seventy-two nations mentioned in Genesis Chapter Ten) to be examples of when He instructs them on their conduct as He sends them out to evangelise. Their spirit of poverty and their acceptance of hardship and obstacles, jointly with their praise of God for His goodness, should validate their message of "The Kingdom of God is very near" (Lk. 10:11). To go forth to an often hostile world, trusting only in the goodness and love of God, as Job trusted, is truly to be impressive instruments of God.