Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 2:11

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.

11. for they had made an appointment ] Or, and they met together. They came each from his own place and met at one point to go to visit Job together.

to mourn with him ] Or, condole with him, and shew their sympathy with him in his sufferings.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11 13. Job’s three friends, having heard of his misfortunes, come to condole with him

How long time intervened between Job’s second affliction and the arrival of his friends cannot be accurately ascertained. From the allusions in chaps. 7, 19, and 30, it is probable that a considerable time elapsed. A man of Job’s rank would not choose his friends from the men of inferior station around him; they would be, like himself, Eastern princes, all but his equals in rank and influence. Their abodes would therefore be distant from one another, and more distant from his, and travelling in the East is slow. The tone of Job’s mind, too, as reflected in ch. 3, has undergone a change, the effect, no doubt, of protracted sufferings.

Eliphaz is an old Idumean name (Gen 36:4), and Teman, the place of his abode, is frequently mentioned in connexion with Edom. The place was famed for the wisdom of its inhabitants (Amo 1:12; Oba 1:8; Jer 49:7; Eze 25:13). Shuah was a son of Abraham by Keturah. The descendants of this wife were sent by Abraham to the East (Gen 25:2; Gen 25:6). Bildad may be connected by the Author with this family. Naamah, the dwelling-place of Zophar, means, perhaps, pleasant abode ( Beausjour, Reuss). A place of this name is mentioned, Jos 15:41, but this, being in Palestine, can hardly have been the home of Zophar. The place is doubtless supposed by the Writer to lie east of the Jordan.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Now when Jobs three friends heard – It would seem from this that these men were his particular friends.

They came every one from his own place – His residence. This was the result of agreement or appointment thus to meet together.

Eliphaz the Temanite – This was the most prominent of his friends. In the ensuing discussion he regularly takes the lead, advances the most important and impressive considerations, and is followed and sustained by the others. The Septuagint renders this Elifaz ho Thaimainon basileus – Eliphaz, the king of the Themanites. The Hebrew does not intimate that he held any office or rank. The word rendered Temanite teymany is a patronymic from teman, meaning properly at the right hand, and then the South. The Hebrew geographers are always represented as looking to the East, and not toward the North, as we do; and hence, with them, the right hand denotes the South. Teman or Theman was a son of Eliphaz, and grandson of Esau; see Gen 36:15, where he is spoken of as duke or prince ‘aluph a head of a family or tribe, a chieftain.

He is supposed to have lived on the east of Idumea. Eusebius places Thaeman in Arabia Petrara, five miles from Petra (see the notes at Isa 16:1), and says that there was a Roman garrison there. The Temanites were cclebrated for wisdom. Is wisdom no more in Teman? Jer 49:7. The country was distinguished also for producing men of strength: And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed; Oba 1:9. That this country was a part of Idumea is apparent, not only from the fact that Teman was a descendant of Esau, who settled there, but from several places in the Scriptures. Thus, in Eze 25:13, it is said, I will also stretch out mine hand upon Edom, and I will make it desolate from Toman, and they of Dedan shall fall by the sword. In Amo 1:12, Teman is mentioned as in the vicinity of Bozrah, at one time the capital of Idumea: But I will send a fire upon Teman, which shall devour the palaces of Bozrah; see the notes at Isa 21:14. The inhabitants of this country were distinguished in early times for wisdom, and particularly for that kind of wisdom which is expressed in close observation of men and manners, and the course of events, and which was expressed in proverbs. Thus, they are mentioned in the book of Baruch, 3:23: The merchants of Meran and of Theman, the authors of fables, and searchers out of understanding, hoi muthologoi kai hoi ekzetetai tes suneseos.

And Bildad the Shuhite – The second speaker uniformly in the following argument. The Septuagint renders this, Bildad the sovereign of the Saucheans, Saucheon turannos. Shuah shuach (meaning a pit) was the name of a son of Abraham, by Keturah, and also of an Arabian tribe, descended from him, Gen 25:2. The country of the Shuhites, says Gesenius, was not improbably the same with the Sakkaia of Ptolemy, v. 15, eastward of Batanea. But the exact situation of the Shubites is unknown. It is difficult to determine the geography of the tribes of Arabia, as many of them are migratory and unsettled. It would seem that Bildad did not reside very far from Eliphaz, for they made an agreement to go and visit Job.

And Zophar the Naamathite – An inhabitant of Naamah, whose situation is unknown. The Septuagint renders this, Zophar, king of the Minaians – Minaion basileus. A place by the name of Naamah is mentioned in Jos 15:41, as in the limits of the tribe of Judah. But this was a considerable distance from the residence of Job, and it is not probable that Zophar was far from that region. Conjecture is useless as to the place where he lived. The Editor of the Pictorial Bible, however, supposes that Zophar was from the town in Judah mentioned in Jos 15:41. He observes that this town is mentioned in a list of the uttermost cities of Judahs lot, toward the coast of Edom southward; it is further among that portion of those towns that lay in the valley Jos 15:33, wbich valley is the same that contained Joktheel Jos 15:38, which is supposed to have been Petra. Naamah was probably, therefore, in or near the Ghor or valley which extends from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akaba. – These considerations, he adds, seem to establish the conclusion that the scene of this book is laid in the land of Edom. In the first part of this verse, a remarkable addition occurs in the Chaldee paraphrase. – It is as follows: And the three friends of Job heard of all the evil which had come upon him, and when they saw the trees of his gardens (Chaldean, Paradise ) that they were dried up, and the bread of his support that it was turned into living flesh ( ), and the wine of his drink turned into blood ( ).

Here is evidently the doctrine of transubstantiation, the change of bread into flesh, and of wine into blood, and bears the marks of having been interpolated by some friend of the papacy. But when or by whom it was done is unknown. It is a most stupid forgery. The evident intention of it was to sustain the doctrine of transubstantiation, by the plea that it was found far back in the times of Job, and that it could not be regarded, therefore, as an absurdity. To what extent it has ever been used by the advocates of that doctrine, I have no means of ascertaining. Its interpolation here is a pretty sure proof of the conviction of the author of it that the doctrine is not found in any fair interpretation of the Bible.

For they had made an appointment together – They had agreed to go together, and they evidently set out on the journey together. The Chaldee – or someone who has interpolated a passage in the Chaldee – has introduced a circumstance in regard to the design of their coming, which savors also of the Papacy. It is as follows: They came each one from his place, and for the merit of this they were freed from the place destined to them in Gehenna, a passage evidently intended to defend the doctrine of purgatory, by the authority of the ancient Chaldee Paraphrase.

To come to mourn with him, and to comfort him – To show the appropriate sympathy of friends in a time of special calamity. They did not come with an intention to reproach him, or to charge him with being a hypocrite.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Job 2:11

Now when Jobs three friends heard of all this evil.

Jobs friends

They had good intentions, and goodness of heart. We have here a striking instance of disinterested friendship.

I. Its constancy. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar heard of the reverses that had come upon Job. The general way of the world would have caused them to turn their backs upon him. When a man is alone, and possessing no social advantages, he is neglected. So also a man in full health and vigour, amusing, instructive, energetic, is sought after as a companion, but when laid low with disease few care for his company. Jobs friends set us a notable example then in their constancy. His losses, poverty, distress, and disease did not alienate their friendship or their regard.

II. Its activity. An idle friendship is a useless one. Profession is all very well, but something more than profession is required in a friend. Even kind words will not bind up broken vows. The friendship of Jobs friends was active. We see this–

1. From the trouble they took. Apparently they lived at some distance off. But distance is nothing to affectionate interest, and they took the journey with the best of motives–that of affording comfort and solace.

2. From the means they employed. They did not run off to Job direct, but they met together and took counsel how they might best accomplish the means they had in view. This involved additional trouble, but it proved how true was the interest they felt.

III. Its wisdom. Sympathy is often misdirected. It loses its power and efficacy by some shortsighted indiscretion. It takes a long time to learn how to administer consolation in the most acceptable manner. How did they begin their purpose? By openly blurting out their purpose and object? By commonplaces of condolence? By wisely shaking their heads and parrot-like repeating the expression, We thought it would come to this! This is the lot of all men? Nay, they manifested their sympathy by silent tears. We must all have sorrow, we shall all need sympathy. Let us be very thankful if we have faithful friends, and may we know how best to show them regard. And may the subject lead us to value above all the blessed sympathy of Christ. (J. J. S. Bird.)

Genuine friendship

I. It was deepened by adversity. The effect on their minds of the overwhelming calamities which overtook Job was not to drive them from him, but to draw them to him. Adversity is one of the best tests for friendship. The Germans have a proverb, Let the guests go before the storm bursts. False friends forsake in adversity. When the tree is gay in summer beauty, and rich in aroma, bees will crowd around it and make music amongst its branches; but when the flower has fallen, and the honey has been exhausted, they will pass it by, and avoid it in their aerial journeys. When your house is covered with sunshine, birds will chirp at your windows, but in the cloud and the storm their notes are not heard–such bees and birds are types of false friends. Not so with true friendship; it comes to you when your tree of prosperity has withered; when your house is shadowed by the cloud and beaten by the storm. True friends, says an old writer, visit us in prosperity only when invited, but in adversity they come to us without invitation. In this respect, Christ is the highest manifestation of genuine friendship. He came down from His own bright heavens because of our adversity. He came to seek and to save the lost, etc.

II. It was prompted to relieving labour. The friendship of these men was not a passing sentiment, an evanescent emotion, it was a working force; it set them to–

1. A self-denying work. They bit their homes and directed their footsteps to the scene of their afflicted friend. Travelling in those days meant something more than it does in these times, when means of transit are so accessible, agreeable, and swift. And then, no doubt, it required not a little self-denying effort to break away from their homes, their numerous associations, and the avocations of their daily life. Their friendship meant self-denying effort. This is always a characteristic of genuine friendship–spurious friendship abounds in talk and evaporates in sighs and tears; it has no work in it.

2. A self-denying work in order to relieve. They came to mourn with him and to comfort him. Man can comfort man. The expressions of true sympathy are balm to a wounded heart, and courage to a fainting soul. In this feature of genuine friendship Christ was again transcendent. He came to preach deliverance to the captive–to open the prison door to them that are bound–to bind up the broken-hearted, etc.

III. It was vicariously afflicted. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice and wept; and they rent everyone his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. If this language means anything, it means soul suffering. The very sight of their friends over whelming afflictions harrowed their hearts. We are so constituted that the personal sufferings of our friend can bring sufferings to our heart as great, and often greater.

IV. It was tenderly reticent. Why were they silent? We are sometimes silent with amazement; sometimes because we know not what words to utter on the occasion; sometimes because the tide of our emotion rises and chokes the utterance. Why were these men silent? For any of these reasons? Perhaps for all. Anyhow, in their silence there was wisdom–silence on that occasion was better than speech. (Homilist.)

Sympathy

Weep with them that weep. Just as we should be glad in the gladness of others, so we must grieve in the griefs of others. There are people who find it almost impossible to do this. They can neither feel for nor with others. They are naturally unsympathetic. This exhortation comes to such as a duty. They must learn the art, and so thoroughly that they will sympathise naturally and truly. It is no excuse to say that we cannot. We must. Dr. Dale is a case in point. This is what his son says of his father: He was not selfish, but he was apt to be self-absorbed, engrossed by his own thoughts, and so absorbed as to be heedless of those whom he met, and of what was going on around him; he often gave offence unwittingly. His nature was not sympathetic. The faculty so bestowed on some, he had to cultivate sedulously and patiently as one of the moral virtues . . . He was conscious of his defect, and set himself to overcome it, not as a mere infirmity, but as a fault: He became sympathetic by sympathising. Dr. Dale was not singular in this instinctive lack of sympathy. There are many similarly destitute of the grace of sorrowing. (Homilist.)

Interview of Job and his three friends

The misfortunes of princes have a particular tendency to excite our pity and compassion, even though their afflictions may have arisen from their own imprudent and culpable behaviour. Many instances of such generous behaviour might be collected from profane history. See the case of David in his treatment of King Saul. Among the foremost of those who seem to have been hurled suddenly from the highest pinnacle of fortune to the very lowest pit of misery and wretchedness stands holy Job, a powerful and wealthy prince of the patriarchal ages. Touched with the sad tidings of his sufferings, three neighbouring chieftains agree to visit and condole with their suffering friend. Their design was, on their setting out, humane, charitable, and friendly. Yet from the unhappy turn things took, their visit was but the occasion of new sorrow to Job. They had heard of Jobs calamities, but appear to have been overwhelmed when they saw his miserable condition. They evidently thought thus: As his afflictions are so extraordinary and personal, so must his crimes have been his own also. We have heard of no public wickedness, so he must be a secret sinner; and the best advice we can give is, urge him to confess and bewail his guilt, that so he may obtain Gods pardon, and be restored to his former prosperity. The false principle they maintained was, that God never suffers the righteous to be afflicted. To them Jobs calamities were a sure sign of his proportionate wickedness. One of them was cruel enough to say, God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth. Practical reflections. By the tenor of Eliphazs speeches we may judge that he was artful and insinuating, specious and plausible, one who knew how to make the most of a bad argument. Bildad speaks in a graver and milder strain; but the fierceness of Zophar exceeds all bounds. When reason fails, anger and abuse supply its place. Let us be cautious how we trample down a bruised reed, how we despise one over whom the rod of affliction, and poverty, and misery hangeth; as if we thought that the faculties of the soul, the integrity of the heart, depended on the health and clothing of the body. Let us be cautious how we let pride and perverseness influence our reason; and particularly in disputes about matters of opinion let us be careful never to judge harshly or uncharitably of those who differ from us; never to entrench and fortify ourselves within the pale of error, when conviction and truth knock aloud for admittance. What positive good may we learn from imitating the behaviour of holy Job himself? View him in the great and exalted character of a pious and good man, combating adversity, and vexed and harassed with the unjust and cruel suspicions, the peevish and petulant accusations of mistaken friends. He tries to convince them of their mistake. At last he appeals to the whole tenor of his life and manners. See how remarkably pious were all his principles, how solid his virtue, how eminent his true wisdom in fearing God, and God alone! Jobs patience is proverbially known. A word is necessary on Jobs infirmities. Job was not without his failings. As long as he was left to the workings of his own mind, it is said that he sinned not. But when his integrity was called in question by his perverse friends, it wrung from him some little excursion of complaint, some few passionate exclamations, which, in the bitterness of his anguish, he could not suppress. There was sometimes also a weariness of life, a wishing for death, an impatience of spirit, which were shades and blemishes in character. Job was sometimes led beyond the bounds of decency, but he quickly repented in dust and ashes, and was as quickly received again into Gods favour. From whence we may learn how readily God overlooks and forgives the infirmities of our nature, provided the heart is staunch in its obedience. (C. Moore, M. A.)

The mistaken friends

Job was irritated and out of temper when he said to his friends, Miserable comforters are ye all. Like many another man, before and since, Job was wounded in the house of his friends. The individuality of these three men comes to view in their first speeches. They are not represented as foolish, obstinate bigots, but as wise, humane, almost great men. True-hearted, truly loving, devout, religious men. Eliphaz is the true patriarchal chieftain, grave and dignified, erring only from exclusive adherence to tenets hitherto unquestioned. He deals with the infirmity of all mortal natures, and the blessed virtue of repentance. Bildad, with little originality or independence of character, reposes partly on the wise saws of antiquity, partly on the authority of his older friend. His mistake is this: It is quite true that nothing which God sends to man proceeds from injustice, but it is not true that everything comes from justice. Bildad thinks his commonplace utterance is sufficient to explain all the mysteries of human life. Zophar was, apparently, a younger man; his language is violent, at times coarse and offensive; he represents the prejudiced and narrow-minded bigots of every age. From the haughty elevation of his narrow dogma he cannot even apprehend Jobs form of experience. The very point of the poem is that what these men say is true in itself, but becomes unsuitable, and even false, when attempt is made to apply it to a particular case.

1. Observe the condition of mind in which these friends found Job. It was precisely the condition most difficult of comprehension by anyone who thinks that religious experience ought to take certain definite and prescribed forms. Job had not that light of immortality shining on the mystery of life and suffering, which has come to us in Christ. What could we do with human suffering if that blessed light were blotted out? The calamities of Job had been overwhelming. He was in the first stage of distress. He was desperate, he was bowing, almost in despair, while all the waves and billows were passing over him. He was crushed, humbled, agonised; for the moment his trust in God was paralysed. Self-restraint was temporarily lost; he half suspected change in God, and felt all the agony of a soul that was being forsaken. Such a state of mind is not guilty. It is but natural response. But it puzzles many. The condition revealed in chap. 3 seems to many persons hopelessly wrong. And unless something in our own experience reveals the secret, it is quite hopeless to attempt to vindicate it. We have seen men in just this state of mind. We have passed through it ourselves. The man Christ Jesus shows us the truth of this experience. In agony of soul, that is in harmony with the agony of Job, He cried from the darkness of His Cross, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?

2. How did these friends think to comfort such a man, in such a frame of mind? The friends had three rounds of conversation (if Zophars third be recognised in chap. 27); but they have only one idea, which is variously presented and illustrated. It may be stated in the form of a syllogism. God, who is just, bestows blessings on the godly, but afflicts the wicked. But Job is most heavily afflicted by God. Therefore Job is wicked, and deserves the punishment of his sins; and is bound to repent, confess, and bewail those sins. In the first speech all this is stated in general terms; all is impersonal, indirect; the rule of the world, the order of providence, the infirmity of mortal nature, the virtue of repentance. In the next speech Eliphaz takes Jobs desperate words as the proof that their suspicion was well founded. Some secret and terrible impiety accounted for his exceptional sufferings. Becoming excited as their views are resisted, the friends get so far as to threaten Job with even more and greater sufferings. It was manifest in those days; it is much more manifest now, that no one explanation of human suffering can be sufficient. The troubles of life may be sent as the punishment of sin; they may be sent as chastisement and discipline. But there are continually cases arising of suffering for which neither punishment nor discipline provide adequate explanation. The dealings of God with men cannot be arbitrarily mapped out and limited, as the believers in dogma think they can.

3. What was the effect of their representations on Job? It brought him deeper suffering than any of his former calamities; because it brought him very near to questioning and mistrusting God. It is desperate work keeping hold of God, when a man is compelled to doubt Gods justice, and see nothing but His power. The friends who came to comfort Job, in fact, lead him down into the lowest depth of misery, smiting the good man in his tenderest part, in his confidence and hope in God. There is no darkness over any human soul like the darkness of a lost or mistrusted God. Let us learn that the relations between God and His people are large and wide and free. We need to beware of theories and forms of belief, however plausible they may seem, which are forced to explain every case that may arise, or are felt to be untrue to life, to conscience, and genuine feeling. In contrast with the mistaken comforting of these friends we may put the holy charm of Christs sympathy. His is a fellow feeling of our infirmity, without any limitation from received opinion. Christ does not approach His suffering disciples as their fellow men do, Men say: According to our system and theories, it must be thus and thus with him. But Christ comes to the man and says: How is it with thee? Nay, Christ knows exactly how it is with him, and comforts His suffering servant, as one whom his mother comforteth. (Robert Tuck, B. A.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 11. Job’s three friends] The first was Eliphaz the Temanite; or, as the Septuagint has it, , Eliphaz the king on the Thaimanites. Eliphaz was one of the sons of Esau; and Teman, of Eliphaz, Ge 36:10-11. Teman was a city of Edom, Jer 49:7-20; Eze 25:13; Amo 1:11-12.

Bildad the Shuhite] Or, as the Septuagint, , Baldad, tyrant of the Suchites. Shuah was the son of Abraham by Keturah: and his posterity is reckoned among the Easterns. It is supposed he should be placed with his brother Midian, and his brother’s sons Sheba and Dedan. See Ge 25:2-3. Dedan was a city of Edom, see Jer 49:8, and seems to have been situated in its southern boundary, as Teman was in its western. Eze 25:13.

Zophar the Naamathite] Or, according to the Septuagint, , Sophar king of the Minaites. He most probably came from that Naamah, which was bordering upon the Edomites to the south and fell by lot to the tribe of Judah, Jos 15:21-41. These circumstances, which have already been mentioned in the introduction, prove that Job must have dwelt in the land of Edom, and that all his friends dwelt in Arabia Petraea, or in the countries immediately adjacent. That some of those Eastern people were highly cultivated, we have at least indirect proof in the case of the Temanites, Jer 49:7: Concerning Edom thus saith the Lord of hosts, Is wisdom no more in Teman? Is counsel perished from the prudent? Is their wisdom vanished? They are celebrated also in Baruch 3:22, 23. Speaking of wisdom he says: It hath not been heard of in Chanaan; neither hath it been seen in Theman. The Agarenes that seek wisdom upon earth, the merchants of Meran and of Theman, the expounders of fables, and searchers out of understanding, none of these have known the way of wisdom. It is evident enough from these quotations that the inhabitants of those districts were celebrated for their knowledge; and the sayings of Job’s three friends are proofs that their reputation for wisdom stood on a very solid foundation.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

They were persons then eminent for birth and quality, for wisdom and knowledge, and for the profession of the true religion, being probably of the posterity of Abraham, and akin to Job, and living in the same country with him.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

11. EliphazThe view ofRAWLINSON that “thenames of Job’s three friends represent the Chaldean times, about 700B.C.,” cannot beaccepted. Eliphaz is an Idumean name, Esau’s oldest son (Ge36:4); and Teman, son of Eliphaz (Ge36:15), called “duke.” EUSEBIUSplaces Teman in Arabia-Petra (but see on Job6:19). Teman means “at the right hand”; and then thesouth, namely, part of Idumea; capital of Edom (Am1:12). Hebrew geographers faced the east, not the north as we do;hence with them “the right hand” was the south. Temaniteswere famed for wisdom (Jer 49:7).BARUCH mentions them as”authors of fables” (namely, proverbs embodying the resultsof observation), and “searchers out of understanding.”

Bildad the ShuhiteShuah(“a pit”), son of Abraham and Keturah (Ge25:2). PTOLEMYmentions the region Syccea, in Arabia-Deserta, east of Batanea.

Zophar the Naamathitenotof the Naamans in Judah (Jos15:41), which was too distant; but some region in Arabia-Deserta.FRETELIUS says there was aNaamath in Uz.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him,…. Of the loss of his substance, servants, and children, and of his own health; the news of which soon spread in the adjacent countries, Job being a person of great note, and his calamity so very extraordinary and uncommon: who these three friends were is after observed; they living at some distance from him, held a correspondence with him, and he with them, being good men; and now act the friendly part in paying him a visit under such circumstances;

Pr 17:17;

they came everyone from his own place; from the country, city, town, or habitations where they lived; whether they walked or rode is not said, their names are as follow:

Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; the first of these, Eliphaz, was either from Teman, a city in Edom, on the borders of Arabia Deserta, as the Targum; or a descendant of Teman, a grandson of Esau; not Eliphaz the son of Esau,

Gen 36:11 as the Targum on that place says; for he was the father of Teman, from whom this Eliphaz sprang: the second, Bildad, was a descendant from Shuah, a son of Abraham, by Keturah, Ge 25:2; whose posterity with geographers are called Sauchites, Sauchaeans, Sacceans, and settled in Arabia Deserta, from whence Bildad came: the third, Zophar the Naamathite, who he was, and why so called, is not certain; there is nothing but conjectures concerning him; it is most probable that he lived in Arabia Deserta, or on the borders of it, near to Job’s country and that of his other two friends n; there was a Naamath in the land of Uz, which was Job’s country according to Fretelius o: the Septuagint version calls Eliphaz the king of the Temanites, and Bildad the tyrannus, or governor, of the Sauchaens, and Zophar king of the Minaeans p:

for they had made an appointment together; upon hearing of Job’s trouble, they got together, and fixed upon a time and place to meet together and proceed on in their journey to Job’s house:

to come to mourn with him, and to comfort him; the first word signifies to “move to him” q not as Sephorno explains it, to go with him from place to place, that he might not lay hands on himself; but rather, as the Latin interpreter of the Targum, to move their heads at him; as persons, to show their concern for, and sympathy with, the afflicted, shake their heads at them: the meaning is, that they came to condole his misfortunes, and to speak a word of comfort to him under them; and no doubt but they came with a real and sincere intent to do this, though they proved miserable comforters of him; Job 16:2.

n Vid. Spanhem. Hist. Jobi, c. 11. sect. 3. &c. o Apud Adrichom. Theatrum. T. S. p. 21. p So Aristeas, Philo and Polyhistor apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 25. p. 431. q “verbum” “migrare, et sese movere significat”, Mercerus, so Ben Melech.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

After the sixth temptation there comes a seventh; and now the real conflict begins, through which the hero of the book passes, not indeed without sinning, but still triumphantly.

11 When Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz from Teman, and Bildad from Shuach, and Zophar from Naama: for they had made an appointment to come together to go and sympathize with him, and comfort him.

is, according to Gen 36, an old Idumaean name (transposed = Phasal in the history of the Herodeans; according to Michaelis, Suppl. p. 87; cui Deus aurum est , comp. Job 22:25), and a district of Idumaea, celebrated for its native wisdom (Jer 49:7; Bar. 3:22f.). But also in East-Hauran a Tm is still found (described by Wetzstein in his Bericht ber seine Reise in den beiden Trachonen und um das Hauran-Gebirge, Zeitschr. fr allg. Erdkunde, 1859), and about fifteen miles south of Tm, a Bzn suggestive of Elihu’s surname (comp. Jer 25:23). we know only from Gen 25 as the son of Abraham and Keturah, who settled in the east country. Accordingly it must be a district of Arabia lying not very far from Idumaea: it might be compared with trans-Hauran Schakka, though the sound, however, of the word makes it scarcely admissible, which is undoubtedly one and the same with Dakkai’a, east from Batanaea, mentioned in Ptolem. v. 15. is a name frequent in Syria and Palestine: there is a town of the Jewish Shephla (the low ground by the Mediterranean) of this name, Jos 15:41, which, however, can hardly be intended here. is Milel, consequently third pers. with the art. instead of the relative pron. (as, besides here, Gen 18:21; Gen 46:27), vid., Ges. 109 ad init. The Niph. is strongly taken by some expositors as the same meaning with , to confer with, appoint a meeting: it signifies, to assemble themselves, to meet in an appointed place at an appointed time (Neh 6:2). Reports spread among the mounted tribes of the Arabian desert with the rapidity of telegraphic despatches.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Job Visited by His Friends.

B. C. 1520.

      11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.   12 And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.   13 So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.

      We have here an account of the kind visit which Job’s three friends paid him in his affliction. The news of his extraordinary troubles spread into all parts, he being an eminent man both for greatness and goodness, and the circumstances of his troubles being very uncommon. Some, who were his enemies, triumphed in his calamities, Job 16:10; Job 19:18; Job 30:1, c. Perhaps they made ballads on him. But his friends concerned themselves for him, and endeavoured to comfort him. A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. Three of them are here named (&lti>v. 11), Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. We shall afterwards meet with a fourth, who it should seem was present at the whole conference, namely, Elihu. Whether he came as a friend of Job or only as an auditor does not appear. These three are said to be his friends, his intimate acquaintance, as David and Solomon had each of them one in their court that was called the king’s friend. These three were eminently wise and good men, as appears by their discourses. They were old men, very old, had a great reputation for knowledge, and much deference was paid to their judgment, ch. xxxii. 6. It is probable that they were men of figure in their country-princes, or heads of houses. Now observe,

      I. That Job, in his prosperity, had contracted a friendship with them. If they were his equals, yet he had not that jealousy of them–if his inferiors, yet he had not that disdain of them, which was any hindrance to an intimate converse and correspondence with them. to have such friends added more to his happiness in the day of his prosperity than all the head of cattle he was master of. Much of the comfort of this life lies in acquaintance and friendship with those that are prudent and virtuous; and he that has a few such friends ought to value them highly. Job’s three friends are supposed to have been all of them of the posterity of Abraham, which, for some descents, even in the families that were shut out from the covenant of peculiarity, retained some good fruits of that pious education which the father of the faithful gave to those under his charge. Eliphaz descended from Teman, the grandson of Esau (Gen. xxxvi. 11), Bildad (it is probable) from Shuah, Abraham’s son by Keturah, Gen. xxv. 2. Zophar is thought by some to be the same with Zepho, a descendant from Esau, Gen. xxvi. 11. The preserving of so much wisdom and piety among those that were strangers to the covenants of promise was a happy presage of God’s grace to the Gentiles, when the partition-wall should in the latter days be taken down. Esau was rejected; yet many that came from him inherited some of the best blessings.

      II. That they continued their friendship with Job in his adversity, when most of his friends had forsaken him, ch. xix. 14. In two ways they showed their friendship:–

      1. By the kind visit they paid him in his affliction, to mourn with him and to comfort him, v. 11. Probably they had been wont to visit him in his prosperity, not to hunt or hawk with him, not to dance or play at cards with him, but to entertain and edify themselves with his learned and pious converse; and now that he was in adversity they come to share with him in his griefs, as formerly they had come to share with him in his comforts. These were wise men, whose heart was in the house of mourning, Eccl. vii. 4. Visiting the afflicted, sick or sore, fatherless or childless, in their sorrow, is made a branch of pure religion and undefiled (Jam. i. 27), and, if done from a good principle, will be abundantly recompensed shortly, Matt. xxv. 36.

      (1.) By visiting the sons and daughters of affliction we may contribute to the improvement, [1.] Of our own graces; for many a good lesson is to be learned from the troubles of others; we may look upon them and receive instruction, and be made wise and serious. [2.] Of their comforts. By putting a respect upon them we encourage them, and some good word may be spoken to them which may help to make them easy. Job’s friends came, not to satisfy their curiosity with an account of his troubles and the strangeness of the circumstances of them, much less, as David’s false friends, to make invidious remarks upon him (Ps. xli. 6-8), but to mourn with him, to mingle their tears with his, and so to comfort him. It is much more pleasant to visit those in affliction to whom comfort belongs than those to whom we must first speak conviction.

      (2.) Concerning these visitants observe, [1.] That they were not sent for, but came of their own accord (ch. vi. 22), whence Mr. Caryl observes that it is good manners to be an unbidden guest at the house of mourning, and, in comforting our friends, to anticipate their invitations. [2.] That they made an appointment to come. Note, Good people should make appointments among themselves for doing good, so exciting and binding one another to it, and assisting and encouraging one another in it. For the carrying on of any pious design let hand join in hand. [3.] That they came with a design (and we have reason to think it was a sincere design) to comfort him, and yet proved miserable comforters, through their unskilful management of his case. Many that aim well do, by mistake, come short of their aim.

      2. By their tender sympathy with him and concern for him in his affliction. When they saw him at some distance he was so disfigured and deformed with his sores that they knew him not, v. 12. His face was foul with weeping (ch. xvi. 16), like Jerusalem’s Nazarites, which had been ruddy as the rubies, but were now blacker than a coal,Lam 4:7; Lam 4:8. What a change will a sore disease, or, without that, oppressing care and grief, make in the countenance, in a little time! Is this Naomi? Ruth i. 19. So, Is this Job? How hast thou fallen! How is thy glory stained and sullied, and all thy honour laid in the dust! God fits us for such changes! Observing him thus miserably altered, they did not leave him, in a fright or loathing, but expressed so much the more tenderness towards him. (1.) Coming to mourn with him, they vented their undissembled grief in all the then usual expressions of that passion. They wept aloud; the sight of them (as is usual) revived Job’s grief, and set him a weeping afresh, which fetched floods of tears from their eyes. They rent their clothes, and sprinkled dust upon their heads, as men that would strip themselves, and abase themselves, with their friend that was stripped and abased. (2.) Coming to comfort him, they sat down with him upon the ground, for so he received visits; and they, not in compliment to him, but in true compassion, put themselves into the same humble and uneasy place and posture. They had many a time, it is likely, sat with him on his couches and at his table, in his prosperity, and were therefore willing to share with him in his grief and poverty because they had shared with him in his joy and plenty. It was not a modish short visit that they made him, just to look upon him and be gone; but, as those that could have had no enjoyment of themselves if they had returned to their place while their friend was in so much misery, they resolved to stay with him till they saw him mend or end, and therefore took lodgings near him, though he was not now able to entertain them as he had done, and they must therefore bear their own charges. Every day, for seven days together, at the house in which he admitted company, they came and sat with him, as his companions in tribulation, and exceptions from that rule, Nullus ad amissas ibit amicus opes–Those who have lost their wealth are not to expect the visits of their friends. They sat with him, but none spoke a word to him, only they all attended to the particular narratives he gave of his troubles. They were silent, as men astonished and amazed. Cur leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent–Our lighter griefs have a voice; those which are more oppressive are mute.

So long a time they held their peace, to show A reverence due to such prodigious woe.–Sir R. BLACKMORE.

      They spoke not a word to him, whatever they said one to another, by way of instruction, for the improvement of the present providence. They said nothing to that purport to which afterwards they said much–nothing to grieve him (ch. iv. 2), because they saw his grief was very great already, and they were loth at first to add affliction to the afflicted. There is a time to keep silence, when either the wicked is before us, and by speaking we may harden them (Ps. xxxix. 1), or when by speaking we may offend the generation of God’s children, Ps. lxxiii. 15. Their not entering upon the following solemn discourses till the seventh day may perhaps intimate that it was the sabbath day, which doubtless was observed in the patriarchal age, and to that day they adjourned the intended conference, because probably then company resorted, as usual, to Job’s house, to join with him in his devotions, who might be edified by the discourse. Or, rather, by their silence so long they would intimate that what they afterwards said was well considered and digested and the result of many thoughts. The heart of the wise studies to answer. We should think twice before we speak once, especially in such a case as this, think long, and we shall be the better able to speak short and to the purpose.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Job’s Three Pretended Friends Arrive

Verses 11-13:

Verse 11 relates that when Job’s three special friends heard of his loss in possessions, family, and health they came to visit with him as described, as follows:

1) Ellphaz the Temanite who was a dogmatist, Gen 36:11; Jer 49:7.

2) Bildad the Shuhite who was a traditionalist, Gen 25:2.

3) Zophar the Naamathite who was a know-all-dogmatist.

These three had made a joint appointment to come to mourn with and comfort him in his loss and affliction, Rom 12:15; 2Co 3:3-4.

Verse 12 states that when these three friends saw Job from a distance they could not recognize him because of his horrible covering of sores as he sat in dust and ashes. They were so emotionally moved at his dreadful appearance that they lifted up their voices with loud crying and died away with voices of weeping. They tore their outer garments and threw dust toward the heavens, causing it to fall on their own heads, as a symbol of deep grief and sorrow for Job’s affliction, as described, Jos 7:6; Act 22:23; See also Neh 9:1; Lam 2:10; Eze 27:30.

Verse 13 adds that the three sat down with Job upon the ground, remaining there for seven days and seven nights, without speaking a word to him, because they saw and were appalled at his grief. They sat empathizing with him in silence, for a period of one full week, Gen 50:10; 1Sa 31:13.

Sores, a Form of Leprosy

It is believed that these sores were a form of leprosy, loathed and considered to be incurable in the East, as described in the Scriptures, Lev 13:42-46; Num 5:14; Num 12:14; Luk 17:11-19, etc.

Low Wallace In Ben Hur, Book VI, chapter 2, “Memorial Edition,”

gives a vivid description of leprosy in the case of Ben Hur’s mother and sister:

Leprosy

Slowly, steadily, with horrible certainty, the disease spread, after a while bleaching their heads white, eating holes in their lips and eyelids, and covering their bodies with scales; then it fell to their throats, shrilling their voices, and to their joints, hardening the tissues and cart ileges-slowly, and, as the mother well knew, past remedy, it was affecting their lungs and arteries and bones, at each advance making the sufferers more and more loathesome; and so it would continue till death, which might be years before them.

He sets forth the awful state of the leper thus:

These four are accounted as dead-the blind, the leper, the poor, and the childless.

Thus the Talmud adds,

That is, to be a leper was to be treated as dead-to be excluded from the city as a corpse; to be spoken to by the best beloved and most loving, only at a distance; to dwell with none but lepers; to be utterly unprivileged; to be denied the rites of the Temple and the synagogue; to go about in rent garments and with covered mouth, except when crying, “Unclean! Unclean!” to find home in the wilderness, or in abandoned tombs; to become a materialized specter of Hinnom and Gehenna; to be at all times less a living offense to others than a breathing torment to self; afraid to die, yet without hope except in death.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

JOBOR IS BIRTH A BLESSING?

Job 2:11 to Job 3:26.

JOSEPH PARKER calls attention to the fact that Job has made but two speeches since the Book opened. Both of them are admirablemore than admirable, touching a point to which imagination can hardly ascend in its moral sublimity. The first is recorded in Job 1:20-21:

Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,

And said, Naked came I out of my mothers womb, and naked shall I return thither; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord.

The second is equally as religious as the first and is recorded in Job 2:10, What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?

Then a long silence ensues. There are times when silence is golden. The man who can hold his tongue thereby reveals the most marvelous self-control; and the man who can restrain his speech in the time of suffering is the man to whom God is likely to speak by His Spirit. It has become a proverb among us that if a man cannot say something good it is better to be silent. For seven long, suffering, intolerable days Job illustrated that moral axiom. This is all the more remarkable when we remember that his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar sat around about him, within reach of a whisper. To lose ones property is sad enough; to see destroyed ones servantsthose with whom he has lived in the most intimate relation, is a bereavement; to bury a single child almost unbearable, but to have ten taken in a single night, and then to say, Blessed be the Name of the Lord is a revelation of the sustaining grace of God. Let it be understood, however, that the billows of sorrow, rolling in upon the soul, are not so difficult to endure as are those same waves when they recede. At the sea-shore people often successfully breast the incoming white caps, to be caught by an under-tow, carried beyond their depths, and drowned. Many a man have I heard at the side of the coffin say, The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away: blessed be the Name of the Lord, who, a week later, was in so much deeper grief, that he joined with Job in questioning whether birth was a blessing.

Permit three statements concerning this question: Satan Creates this Question; Sympathy Complicates this Question; Discouragement Insanely Discusses it.

SATAN CREATES THIS QUESTION

He is the author of lifes deepest sorrows. There may be some in this audience who question whether there be any devil. I am unable so to do. When light fades from the earth I shall question whether there be a sun, not before; when love is no more to be found in the universe I shall question whether there be a God, not until then; and when devilishness cannot be discovered among the children of men I shall question whether there be a devil, not until that day. From the standpoint of the Bible, the devil is the author of lifes deepest sorrows. The record in Genesis is the basis for Miltons statement that

He brought death into the world and all our woe,

while other sentences from this sacred volume charge to his account both sin and sorrow.

When Job was smitten in the loss of property, servants and children, Satan is charged with being the author of these successive disasters; and when Job finds himself covered with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown the inspired record says, So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with these same (Job 2:7).

Saul, of the Old Testament, behaved as he did, and suffered the consequences, because Jehovah gave him up to the evil spirit which he had encouraged to inhabit his heart. The average man and woman have no difficulty in believing that where sin produces sorrow Satan is back of it; but they forget that where sickness smites, and sorrows come in consequence, the Scriptures attribute them to the same source. Let the miracles of Jesus Christ instruct us here. When one brought his dumb son to Jesus what were the words of the Master? Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the Spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out (Mar 9:25-26). When they brought to Him the bound woman, who for eighteen years had never been able to lift herself up, and by the word of Jesus she was made straight, and glorified God, what is His explanation? Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day? (Luk 13:16). When the man of Gadara is cured of his insanity, Scripture explains that unspeakable affliction by saying, Often-times it (the unclean spirit) had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters (Luk 8:29).

What emphasis all this gives to the text, He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, and to the injunction of Peter, Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Yes, Satan is the author of lifes deepest sorrows.

He never suggests a possible profit as a result. From the Divine standpoint, afflictions may, by the over-ruling grace of God, be made to work together for our good. For the young man or woman facing trials and meeting difficulties and enduring discouragements, it is written, It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. For believers, the Word is spoken, My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations. For the enheartenment of his suffering ones God hath said, Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, * * then are ye bastards, and not sons.

But the devil never makes such a suggestion. On the contrary, his thought is voiced in the language of Job,

Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night which said, There is a man-child conceived.

Let that day be darkness; Let not God from above seek for it, Neither let the light shine upon it.

Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own; Let a cloud dwell upon it; Let all that maketh black the day terrify it.

As for that night, let thick darkness seize upon it; Let it not rejoice among the days of the year; Let it not come into the number of the months.

Lo, let that night be barren; Let no joyful voice come therein.

Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan (Job 3:3-8, A. S. V.)

I used to wonder what was meant by this phrase, Let them curse it that curse the day who rouse up leviathan, but I find a satisfactory explanation in the fact that leviathan is the dragon then supposed by the Orients and Ancients to have had his home in the heavens and to follow the sun and the moon, and to be able, on occasion, to even enfold, or swallow them up, and swing a great darkness over all the earth. The Eastern magicians pretended to have power to rouse him up to make war upon the sun and moon. When they wanted a curse upon a day they sicked on the dragon that he might extinguish the light. Job, in his bitterness, joins with them in cursing the day of his birth, for he is under the spell of Satans suggestion that sorrow and suffering could produce only baneful results. The sorrow that is from God worketh repentance unto salvation; a repentance which bringeth no regret; but the sorrow of which Satan is the author worketh death. The man, therefore, who is enduring great affliction, and who sees no possible good to come from it, ought to understand perfectly that Satan hath blinded his eyes, that he is the author of all his reasonings.

Satan often advises suicide as the solitary escape. Daily some coroners jury delivers a decision to the effect that, This man came to his death by suicide. It would be more accurate still if they said, This man came to his death by Satans suggestion. One servant Satan has had who never knew any allegiance to another master, and who never received a suggestion from any other source, namely, Judas Iscariot. Though he lived with Jesus three and a half years, and was treasurer of the little company that made up the embryonic church, there is no indication that anything Jesus ever said influenced him. Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? Satans mastery of him was complete. This man sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. It ostracized him from the companionship of the disciples. Long since he had lost caste with the Jews, and now this position as a man hated by every one, becomes unendurable, and his master suggests a way of escape, and that was the way of self-destruction. I doubt if any man ever died by his own hand, whether in his mind or out of it, but the devil was there. Shakespeare means to present Hamlet as beside himself when he says:

To be or not to be: that is the question:

Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or, to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die; to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wishd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep; perchance to dream; ay, theres the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause; theres the respect

That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressors wrong, the proud mans contumely

The pangs of despised love, the laws delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied oer with the pale cast of thought

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

SYMPATHY COMPLICATES THIS QUESTION

God forbid that I should speak a word against sympathy. It is one of the graces of fallen human life; it is one of the loudest hints of our former holy estate. The man without it is either a marvel or a monster. And yet, undoubtedly, it complicates the question as to whether birth is a blessing.

It accentuates rather than assuages suffering. When great grief comes upon people, they bear it with the least fortitude in the sight of their loved ones. The best music is often set to the strain of sympathy and the hearts of the bereaved are not balsamed but broken by the rendition of the same at funerals. The old heathen custom was to hire mourners whose wailing voices stirred the soul to the depths, and the modern Christian custom is little better, except for the fact that sometimes the words of the music linger with consolation; but the music itself only opens new fountains of feeling and deepens the whole sense of sorrow.

Again, sympathy excites the disposition to relate and re-experience the same. When one has lived through a sorrow, and almost lived it down, and then comes face to face with a dear friend, the temptation is to rehearse and live it over again. What child was there ever content to let the wound remain covered after mother came? She must see how deep it is; and while she looks, he must look with her. A man is not a whit different from the child. Not a gash in body or soul but we are tempted to bare it to the gaze of those we trust; and while we are about it we must ourselves suffer the fresh sight. Did it ever occur to you that this is illustrated by the death of Lazarus? Mary and Martha had laid their brother away, and while doubtless hot tears had scalded their cheeks, it was only when Jesus came that Mary, falling at His feet, was unable longer to restrain herself, and in utter anguish cried, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. Her weeping was such that the Jews who saw her were incited to weep with her; and even Jesus groaned in spirit and was troubled (Joh 11:32-33).

Its expression increases in the sorrowful the feeling of ill-favor. Job could better have borne his grief had not these three men sat about him with sad countenances. It never increases ones courage to. feel that other people are discouraged, nor relieves ones sorrow to feel that other people are sorrowful for him. On the contrary, it weakens the will; for the moment, at least, it unmans one. It would be hard to find a more perfect illustration of this fact than Irvings Life of Columbus contains. He tells us, Moved by envy and sustained by vilest slander, Boladila sent Columbus to Spain in irons. When the Queen beheld this venerable man and saw all that he deserved, and all that he had suffered, she was moved to tears. Columbus had borne up firmly against the conflicts of the world; he had endured with lofty scorn the injuries and insults of ignoble men; but when he found himself thus kindly received, and beheld tears in the benign eyes of Isabella, his long-suppressed feelings burst forth; he threw himself on his knees, and for some time could not utter a word for the violence of his tears and sobbings. Sympathy will never settle the question as to whether birth is a blessing.

DISCOURAGEMENT INSANELY DISCUSSES IT

Discouragement magnifies ones misfortune. It tends to make mountains out of mole hills. Did you ever think of Jonah wanting to die because he had been disappointed in that God did not sweep the city with destruction? That was not a great misfortune; but his grief discouraged him and his life seemed intolerable. Did you ever think of Elijah, under the juniper tree, crying unto God to take his life because a woman had threatened him? It was not a great misfortunemany have experienced the sameand yet his discouraged spirit made him magnify it, and it seemed an occasion worthy of death. Did you ever think of Haman, going home from the kings court and suffering the disappointment that Mordecai was not prostrating himself as he passed, and calling his wife and friends, to recount unto them his riches and his honors, and all the things which were done unto him of the King, and adding, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared but myself; then adding the bilious remark, All this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the kings gate? He did not belong with the company of those who can say with Shakespeares Duke:

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet

Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods

More free from peril than the envious court?

Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,

The seasons difference, as the icy fang

And churlish chiding on the winters wind,

Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,

Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say

This is no flattery; these are counsellors

That feelingly persuade me what I am.

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head:

And this our life exempt from public haunt

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones and good in everything,

I would not change it. And Amiens added, and it is true:

Happy is your grace,

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune

Into so quiet and so sweet a style!

Discouragements minimize our favors. Men easily forget what God has wrought in times past. The yesterdays seem to fade from their view. In this whole malediction of Jobs, recorded in the third chapter, there is not a reference to the riches of the past, when his children were in health and his delight; to the honor given to him by his fellow countrymen, so that he was the greatest of the children of the East. It is all gone out of his mind. I confess to you that I have always admired the Irish because of their ability to make the most of a hard situation. It is related that one of them, lying in a dead drunk, was heard to say between his hiccoughs and groans, But I had a mighty good time! And another, seeing an infuriated bull tossing a man, held his sides with laughter, the thing was so dexterously done. But finally the bull turned his attention to him and gored him mercilessly, and threw him aside. As he dragged himself to his feet he exclaimed, Im glad I laughed when I did, or I wouldnt have had my laugh at all. There is hard sense in such a view. Why should a man concentrate his thoughts absolutely on the sorrows of today to forget the joys of yesterday and the possible pleasures of tomorrow?

Such discouragement totally discredits God. I call your attention to the fact that whereas Job worshipped God, acknowledged Him as the giver of all good, and even praised His Name in connection with his suffering, and defended His right, having given good, to send something of evil should He desire, now he only names Him to make his maledictions more terrible. It is a practical turning from a praiseful to a profane use of that great word God, to use it for curses and not for comfort! No man ever conquered after that manner. A discouraged man is a defeated man. David seems to have so understood; hence his cry, Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance (Psa 42:5).

You will recall that the man who destroyed Doubting Castle and killed Giant Despair was Mr. Greatheartthe man who best believed in God. No man will ever conquer Giant Despair apart from the Father. When God set forth for us, by the pen of inspiration, the most wretched state into which a man can come, he speaks of him as having no hope, and without God in the world. And when He wants to present the way by which men are saved, He says, For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it (Rom 8:24-25). You say you have little hope. Make the most of what you have, and God will grow it. Newman Hall tells the story of a man who had completed a tall chimney and the scaffolding was taken down. They forgot to leave up the ordinary rope by which the superintendent descended. Discovering that he was on this impossible height with no rope, he became dizzy and seemed about to cast himself down. His little boy rushed to the home and shouted, Mother, mother, they have forgotten the rope and papa is going to throw himself down. She paused a moment to think and pray, and rushing to the scene, she cried, Wait, John! Take off thy stocking; unravel the worsted. He did so. Now tie it to a little mortar and lower it carefully. Down came the thread until it was within reach and seized by one of the watchers. They fastened some string to the thread. Now pull up. They fastened the rope to the string. A few seconds and it was in his hand. He is descending; his feet touch the ground, and turning to his wife, he exclaimed, Thou hast saved me Mary! Then Hall adds, The worsted thread was not despised: it drew after it the twine, the rope, the rescue!

Ah, my friend, thou mayest be sunk very low down in sin and woe; but there is a thread at least of Divine love, that comes from the throne of Heaven, and touches even thee. Seize that. It may be small, but it is golden. Improve what you have. Walk in the light given and God will grant more, and the day of your redemption will be speedily at hand.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CONCLUDING PART OF PROSE INTRODUCTION.VISIT OF JOBS FRIENDS

I. The Friends. (Job. 2:11.) Now when Jobs three friends heard. Rather, three friends of Job. Probably friends most intimate with him, and from whom he had most to expect (ch Job. 6:14-15). Perhaps connected with him by kindred as well as acquaintance and religion. Worshippers of the true God. Eminent in their day and country for wisdom and piety. Their religions views those of the age. Regarded retribution as very much a thing of this life. Hence their unfavourable view of Jobs character from his condition. Much older than Job. Intending comfort, they become under Satans influence, and from their narrow mistaken views, his severest trial. Instead of soothing they add to his grief,by uncharitable suspicions, false reasonings, unseasonable admonitions, and bitter reproofs. Good easily perverted to evil by Satans malice. Satan used Jobs wife to jeer him out of his religion, and his friends to dispute him out of it [Caryl.]Came,probably, when his disease was now considerably advanced (Job. 7:4). Affliction should draw us to our friends, not drive us from them. Adversity one of the best tests of friendship (Pro. 17:17). Good manners to be an unbidden guest in the house of mourning. [Caryl]. True friendship shewn in self-denying effort.

Eliphaz. An old Edomite name. A district also so called (Gen. 36:11; Gen. 36:15). Denotes my God is strength. Indicates his parents piety.Temanite. Prom the stock he sprung from, or the place (Teman) where he lived. Temanites celebrated for their wisdom (Jer. 49:7; Oba. 1:8-9).Shuhite. Of Shuah, in the east part of North Arabia. Shuah one of the settlements of the sons of Keturah (Gen. 25:2).Naamathite. From Naamah, probably a district in Syria. The town in Judah so named (Jdg. 15:9), too far distant.

II. Object of the Friends visit. Had made an appointment together. Probably living not far apart from each other. Good to unite together in works of charity and mercy (Mar. 2:3).To mourn with him. Sympathy in sorrow an instinct of humanity and a Christian duty (Rom. 12:15). Example of Jesus (Joh. 11:33-34). Jobs own character (ch. Job. 30:25). Tears shed with our own, often the. most soothing balm in sorrow. A world of meaning in the childs words,I only cried with her.And to comfort him. The motive good, though the execution faulty. A friend in trouble one of our choicest blessings. A brother born for adversity. Comfort of mourners one of the objects of the Lords ministry (Isa. 61:2). See His mode of dispensing it, Isa. 42:3; Mat. 11:28-30. To comfort in trouble one of the leading parts of Christian duty (1Th. 5:18; 1Th. 4:11; Jas. 1:27; Mat. 25:36). Jobs own character and practice (ch. Job. 29:25).Job. 2:12, Lifted up their eyes afar off. Where yet they might easily have recognised him. So the father of the prodigal (Luk. 15:20). Job apparently now in the open air, and, as a leper, outside the city.Knew him not. So altered by his disease, his sorrow, and his place among the ashes. Marks the depth of his calamity. Unrecognizable by his friends. When men know us least, is the time that God knows us best. (Psa. 31:7.)

III. Their Sympathy. Job. 2:12. They lifted up their voice and wept. Marks their deep sympathy and their friends deep sorrow. In the east, full vent usually given to grief (Gen. 27:38; Gen. 29:11; Jdg. 2:4; Rth. 1:9; 1Sa. 24:16).Sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven. Casting it into the air, so as to fall down on their heads (Act. 22:23). Token of grief, astonishment, and humiliation towards God under a great sorrow (Jos. 7:6; Neh. 9:1; 1Sa. 4:10). Their feeling, consternation and sorrow at the sight of so sad a change.Sat down with him upon the ground (Job. 2:13). Another token of sympathetic grief (2Sa. 12:16; Isa. 3:26; Lam. 2:10; Ezr. 9:3). True sympathy to sit down on the ground with one so loathsome in himself, and apparently an object of the Divine displeasure.Seven days. Usual time of mourning for the dead (Gen. 1:10; 1Sa. 31:13). Jobs children dead, and himself virtually so. So in time of great affliction (Eze. 3:15). Depth of Jobs calamity marked by that of his friends sympathy.None spake a word unto him. True sympathy expressed by silence as well as tears. Silence usual and becoming in presence of deep distress (Lam. 2:10). A reverence due to such prodigious woe [Sir R. Blackmore]. Unseasonable words an aggravation of the sufferers grief. The friends confounded at Jobs calamity and unable to speak to it. Ignorant as to the cause, and apprehensive of Divine displeasure. Prudence and skill required in administering consolation.For they saw. His affliction apparently much greater than they had anticipated. The heart affected by the eye. Good to place ourselves in the presence of sorrow (Ecc. 7:2).That his grief was very great. The stroke as heavy as it was possible for Satan to inflict, and the grief proportionate. No sin for our feelings to keep pace with. Gods dealings.

Lessons from Jobs grief and the occasion of it:

1. Gods dearest children and most faithful servants may be the subjects of deepest suffering.
2. No part of piety to render the sou insensible to calamity.
3. The sudden removal of all earthly comforts possible, and to be prepared for.
4. Much of the sufferings of Gods servants the probable result of Satans malice.
5. Patience and submission to Gods will consistent with the deepest grief.

Job in his deep distress a type of the Man of Sorrows. His soul exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. In an agony, prayed the more earnestly that the cup might, if possible, pass from Him, yet meekly submitted. His bloody sweat, the result of a frame like our own convulsed by inward distress (Mat. 26:37; Mat. 26:39; Luk. 22:44).

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

8. Three friends come, and a further great trial begins (their insinuations). (Job. 2:11-13)

TEXT 2:1113

(11) Now when Jobs three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to bemoan him and to comfort him. (12) And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his robe, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. (13) So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights and no one spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.

COMMENT 2:1113

Job. 2:11The passage in Job. 2:11-13 prepares for the coming dialogue. Jobs three comforters are professional wise men from Edom (the proverbial home of wise men, Oba. 1:8; Jer. 49:7). Their concern is both genuine and charitable. They find Jobs condition worse than they had expected and begin expressing the ritual gestures for mourning for the dead by a week long silence.[42] They wait for Job to break his silence before attempting to comfort him. Silence is often the deepest comfort. Our mere presence is frequently the most powerful therapy for broken hearts. Three concerned wise men come to console Job: (1) Eliphaz, (probably means God is fine goldGen. 36:11; Gen. 36:15; Gen. 36:42; 1Ch. 1:36; 1Ch. 1:53) the Temanite. Teman is from a root meaning the right hand of southland, because when one faces the rising sun his right hand is to the south. Teman is probably located in Nabatean territory about 15 miles from Petra (Jer. 49:7; Eze. 25:13; Amo. 1:12 f; Oba. 1:9Teman is always a principal location of Edom). (2) Bildad, (meaning uncertain[43]) the Shuhite. Shuah is mentioned as a son of Abraham and QeturahGen. 25:2; 1Ch. 1:32. The geographical location is, in all probability, also to be found in Edom or Arabia. (3) Zophar, (means young dove,the name appears only in Job) the Naamathite. The most likely location is that of Jebel el Naameh, approximately 40 miles east of Tebuk.[44] The three made an appointment with Job for the purpose of consoling him. The verb means to move to and fro, i.e., to move the body as a sign of mutual grief.

[42] N. Lohfink, Vetus Testamentum 12 (1962), pp. 26077.

[43] See suggestions of Speiser and Albright. Speiser, Archiv fur Orientalforschung, 6 (1930), p. 23; and W. F. Albright, Journal of Biblical Literature, 54 (1935), p. 174, N. 3.

[44] For major possibilities see F. M. Abel, Geographie de la Palestine Tome I, Paris, 1933, p. 287, N. 4.

Job. 2:12Job was so disfigured by the disease that they did not recognize him. To this extent Job is similar to the Suffering Servant of Isa. 53:3, Jobs vindicator, and our Saviour. Each of the three sheikhs wore a robe as a badge of nobility, like JobJob. 1:20. As a sign of torturous grief one tore his robe and sprinkled dust upon his head (Jos. 7:6; Eze. 27:30).

Job. 2:13The three wise men sat down with him on the ground. This was the Near Eastern custom for mourners (Lam. 2:10). The seven days and nights was also the custom for mourning the dead. Surely they thought Job would die, so aggravated was his condition. Sympathy and grief comingled between the sufferer and the mourners. (Ezekiel sat seven days and nights among the exilesJob. 3:15.)

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(11) Eliphaz the Temanite.Teman was the son of Eliphaz, the son of Esau, to whose family this Eliphaz is probably to be referred (Gen. 36:4; Gen. 36:10-11). If so, this may roughly indicate the date of the book. The inhabitants of Teman, which lay north-east of Edom, were famed for their wisdom (Jer. 47:7).

Bildad the Shuhite probably derived his origin from Shuah, the son of Abraham by Keturah (Gen. 25:2). Of the district from which Zophar the Naamathite came nothing is known. It probably derived its name from a Naamah or Naaman, of which there were several (e.g., Gen. 4:22; 1Ki. 14:21; Gen. 46:21; Num. 26:40; 2Ki. 5:1), as names of persons or places called after them.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

THE VISIT OF CONSOLATION, Job 2:11-13.

11. Three friends Their conduct, as seen in this verse, shows them to have been sincere in their friendship at first, however they may have failed and become subsequently involved in angry dispute and bitter recriminations.

Eliphaz the Temanite The word Eliphaz signifies “God the dispenser of riches.” (Furst,) or, according to J.D. Michaelis, “My God is gold.” Since an Eliphaz appears in Gen 36:4; Gen 36:11, as one of the sons of Esau, and the father of Teman, we are justified in supposing that the home of Eliphaz was in the Idumaean region bearing that name. ( 1Ch 1:43 ; 1Ch 1:45.) Teman was probably the capital of Edom, (Amo 1:12) and lay, according to Eusebius, fifteen Roman miles from Petra, or, more probably, about five miles, as in Jerome. “This part of Arabia always had the most excellent philosophers.” Grotius. (See Jer 49:7; Bar 3:22 .) The Septuagint calls Eliphaz the king of the Thaemans.

Bildad the Shuhite So called after a national deity of the Edomites, according to Furst, though Gesenius ( Thesaurus) renders the name, the Strenuous Defender. The Septuagint makes him the ruler of the Sanchaeans. Shuah was the youngest son of Keturah by Abraham, (Gen 25:2,) who sent Shuah and the other children of the concubines “eastward into the east country.” The Shuhites probably dwelt not far from Edom, though Rawlinson conjectures that they may have been the Tsukhi, who dwelt on the northern confines of Babylon, both sides of the Euphrates. (Herodotus, i, p. 380.)

Zophar the Naamathite Zophar, the shaggy, the rough, (Furst.) The place of his residence is uncertain. It could not have been the Naamah spoken of in Jos 15:41. The Septuagint calls him the king of the Minaeans. This leads Dillmann to suggest the identity of Naamah with Maan, an ancient city whose ruins still remain, somewhat to the east of Petra. (Comp. EWALD, Hist. of Israel, 1:239.)

An appointment together When a calamity befalls a family among the Arabs of the present day, all their relations, connexions, and friends immediately hasten together to console them. PIEROTTI. Customs, p. 240. To mourn with him , noudh; English, nod, to shake ( the head.) Among highly excitable races deep grief is expressed by the movement of the head.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Arrival of Job’s Three Friends Job 2:11-13 records the arrival of Job’s three friends: Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. Although Job’s pitiful condition broke their hearts and move them to sorrow and mourn with him, they still found reason to condemn him. When my mother was suffering from a tumor in her chest, I found myself sorrowing for her while my mind wanted to drift towards a cause of sin for this sickness. However, I quickly brought myself back to her redemption in Christ Jesus and understood that all of her sins have been covered by the blood of Jesus and therefore, they no longer exist before the throne in Heaven. I then focused upon those heavenly blessings that she inherited as a child of God, and understood that the blessing of divine healing belonged to her. I prayed with her in faith (October 2010), looking for divine healing rather than finding a reason for condemnation, which Job’s three friends attempted to find in him.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Job 2:11. Eliphaz the Temanite, &c. Eliphaz was the son of Esau, and Teman of Eliphaz; Gen 36:10-11. This Eliphaz, no doubt, was of this family. Teman certainly was a city of Edom, Jer 7:20. Eze 25:13. Amo 1:11-12. Bildad the Shuhite; Shuah was the son of Abraham by Keturah, whose posterity is reckoned among the easterns. Perhaps he is to be placed with his brother Midian, and his brother’s sons Sheba and Dedan; see Gen 25:2-3. Dedan is a city of Edom, Jer 49:7-8 and seems to have been situated in its southern boundary, as Teman was in its western; Eze 25:13. Zophar, the Naamathite: among the cities which fell by lot to the tribe of Judah, bordering upon the Edomites to the south, Naamah is mentioned; Jos 21:41 nor does any other occur of this name. Zophar most likely, came from thence. Concerning Elihu, see the note on chap. Job 32:2. From all these particulars it appears, as clearly as can be expected in a matter of this kind, that Job dwelt in Edom, and that all his friends dwelt in Arabia Petraea, or in the countries immediately adjacent. It may be proper just to observe, that the Edomites, particularly the Temanites, were remarkably celebrated for their wisdom; see Jer 49:7 and Bar 3:22-23. Bishop Lowth: who observes, that, as all the speakers in this poem were Edomites or neighbouring Arabs, sprung most probably from the family of Abraham, the language of it is pure Hebrew, though the author, as it seems, was an Edomite; for it is most probable that all the posterity of Abraham, Israelites, Edomites, and Arabs, as well Keturites as Ishmaelites, made use of the common language of their father for a very long time.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

DISCOURSE: 452
FRIENDLY SYMPATHY ILLUSTRATED

Job 2:11-13. Now when Jobs three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.

JOB in a second conflict had gained the victory: yea, though his wife acted as a confederate with Satan, and urged him to curse God and die, yet did he retain his integrity, and prove himself worthy of the character which God had given him. But the rumour of his unprecedented calamities had spread far and wide, and had caused all those who should have been a comfort to him to depart from him; insomuch that, having none to administer to his relief, he had taken a potsherd to scrape himself withal. But three of his aged friends, descendants of Abraham, though not of the chosen seed, still loved and honoured him; and feeling their incompetency, as individuals, to afford him all the instruction and consolation that the occasion called for, concerted a plan to visit him together, and to unite their efforts for his welfare. An account of their first interview is here set before us; and a most interesting account it is. In discoursing upon it, we shall be led to contemplate,

I.

The nature of love

[Love, as described by St. Paul [Note: 1Co 13:4-7.], and as summarily expressed by our blessed Lord [Note: Mar 12:31. Mat 7:12.], is the acting in all things towards our neighbour as we would think it right that he, in a change of circumstances, should act towards us. It makes us to consider all men as members of one great body, and to participate with them in their feelings, as the different members of our own body would with each other [Note: 1Co 12:25-26.]. If any be afflicted, it prompts us to fly to their relief, and to concert the best measures in our power for their restoration to happiness. In the friends of Job we see the nature of love well exemplified: they did not feel indifferent about him, or run from him, as they did whose hearts were destitute of love; but they met together for the express purpose of participating and alleviating his sorrows. They did this, too, unsolicited, and unsought: it was the fruit of a divine principle within them, the voluntary expression of their own affectionate regards. This was a love, not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth: it was a love without dissimulation: and wherever true love exists, it will produce exactly the same dispositions, and stimulate, according to its measure, to the same exertions.]

In executing their benevolent plan, Jobs friends have shewn us,

II.

The effects of sympathy

[When they were yet at some distance from him, they saw him; but would not have recognised him at all, (so altered was he in his whole appearance,) if they had not been prepared for the change by the reports which they had heard concerning him. But the sight deeply affected them all; so that they burst forth into floods of tears, and rent their mantles, as expressive of their anguish, and sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven, as mourners were wont to do [Note: See this whole expression of sorrow exemplified in those who mourned over the destruction of Tyre; Eze 27:30-31.]. On coming into his immediate presence, they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, that is, a considerable part of each successive day [Note: See Luk 2:37 and Act 20:31.]; and so overwhelmed were they with the sight of his melancholy condition, that none of them could give utterance to their feelings, or attempt to suggest any thing for his relief.

Those who have never known from their own experience how entirely the soul may be overwhelmed with sympathy, conjecture, that during all this time the friends of Job were harbouring suspicions which they did not dare to express. But this idea is very injurious to the character of those holy men, and directly contrary to the account given in our text: for their silence is expressly ascribed to the overpowering effect of their own sympathy at the sight of his unparalleled afflictions; They spake not, for they saw that his grief was very great: and to this cause it must be ascribed. We know, that as silence is the proper effect of great sorrow [Note: Curlevel loquuntur; ingentes stupent.], (David says, I am so troubled that I cannot speak [Note: Psa 77:4.],) so is it also of deep sympathy; such as the elders of the daughters of Zion experienced, when they saw their city and temple destroyed, their princes and people carried into captivity, the law of their God forgotten, and their prophets no longer favoured with visions from the Lord [Note: Lam 2:9-11.]. In a word, the effect of sympathy is, to make the sorrows of another our own; and to produce in our hearts those very feelings of grief and anguish, which the afflicted individual himself is called to sustain.]

The interview, thus illustrated, displays,

III.

The excellence of true religion

[The whole of true religion is comprehended under the term love: Love is the fulfilling of the law [Note: Rom 12:8-10.]. Moreover, the sympathy before delineated, is the most unequivocal expression of love: Pure religion, and undefiled before God and the Father, is this; To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction [Note: Jam 1:27.]. See then religion as exemplified in our text, how beautiful does it appear! A carnal mind would admire rather a sight of kings surrounded by their nobles: but God and his holy angels, I have no doubt, esteem such a sight as was exhibited on that occasion, as infinitely grander than all the pomp of courts, yea than of Solomon in all his glory. Never did our Lord himself appear more glorious, no not even on the mount of transfiguration, than when he was weeping with sympathy at the tomb of Lazarus, or with compassion over the devoted city of Jerusalem. So the sight of these aged men, assembled to mourn with, and to comfort, their afflicted brother, and expressing in such significant ways their overwhelming sorrow, was as noble and as interesting as can be seen on earth. And O, what would this world be, if every one possessed such a spirit as they evinced! Yet such is the tendency of true religion, which transforms us into the image of that God, whose name and nature is love.]

By way of improvement, we will,
1.

Recommend to you the exercise of these dispositions

[Behold these men, how amiable they appear in all the posture and habiliments of woe! And are they not a fit pattern for you to imitate? But you have a brighter pattern than they, even our Lord Jesus Christ himself; who, when he saw our fallen state, came down from heaven to seek and save us, yea, though rich, for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich. O, what marvellous grace was here! and still, as our Great High-priest, he is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, having been himself in all things tempted like as we are, on purpose that he might succour them that are tempted. If then the example of Jobs friends be not sufficient to commend to you these lovely dispositions, let me entreat you to seek the mind that was in Christ. As a further inducement to this, consider how soon you yourselves may need the compassion and the sympathy of others. There is no man so secure, but he is open to the assaults of trouble on every side. Would you then in trouble have any to sympathize with you? Know, that he who would have friends must shew himself friendly [Note: Pro 18:24.]; and that you must sow the grain which you desire to reap. This is an argument used by God himself, who bids us to remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them that suffer adversity, as being ourselves also in the body [Note: Heb 13:3.]. If any further motive be wanted, consider, that in the day of judgment the exercise of this disposition will be a very principal subject of inquiry, as evincing the sincerity of our love to Christ: and every act of love towards the poorest of his people will be acknowledged by him as a favour conferred upon himself [Note: Mat 25:40.]. Let me then recommend the exercise of love and sympathy to all who would adorn their holy profession now, or be approved of their God in that great and awful day.]

2.

Suggest some cautions in relation to it

[Let not sympathy be shewn with the rich only, or with our own particular friends; but let it be extended to all who are in trouble, whether rich or poor, whether known or unknown [Note: Job 30:25.]. We deny not but that those who are nearly related to us have a superior claim; as they have also who are of the household of faith [Note: Gal 6:10.]: but still we must, like the good Samaritan, account every man our neighbour, and gladly avail ourselves of every opportunity of pouring balm into his wounded spirit.

Again, wait not till you are called and summoned to the house of mourning; but go thither of your own accord, esteeming it far better to go there, than to the house of feasting [Note: Ecc 7:2; Ecc 7:4.]. Let the principle of love in you be like a spring, ever ready to act, the moment that a scope for action is afforded it. Look not every man on his own things only, but every man also on the things of others [Note: Php 2:4. with 2Co 11:29.]; and be ready on all occasions to rejoice with them that rejoice, and to weep with them that weep [Note: Rom 12:15.]. This readiness to bear one anothers burthens is a fulfilling of the law of Christ [Note: Gal 6:2.].

But lastly, be not hasty to offer advice to those who are bowed down with a weight of trouble. There is a sacredness in grief which demands our reverence; and the very habitation of a mourner must be approached with awe. A hasty effusion even of consolatory truths is offensive to one who is not prepared in a measure for the reception of them. The language of many is, Look away from me; I will weep bitterly; labour not to comfort me [Note: Isa 22:4.]: and to such, an obtrusive officiousness is disgusting. To such, the silent eloquence of sighs and tears is more consolatory than the most copious harangue. See that you yourselves feel deeply; and then you will neither fall into an officious impertinence, on the one hand, nor deem even a silent visit unserviceable, on the other: you will patiently wait for the most favourable season, and administer your instructions as the mourner is able to receive them.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

(11) Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came everyone from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.

There is somewhat very interesting in this account. The uncommonly heavy afflictions of Job, had called forth, not only the pity and compassion of those men, but also their desires to the attempt of saying, or doing, what they could to alleviate his sorrows. It is a gospel precept, to mourn with them that mourn. And among gracious minds the Lord sometimes, and not unfrequently, affords a mutual holy joy in our visits of love, not only to those we go to comfort, but to ourselves also. It is a profitable service to visit gracious souls in their affliction, especially if we pray the Lord Jesus to go with us, and be of the party. Better to go. (saith Solomon) to the house of mourning than the house of feasting. Ecc 7:2 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Job 2:11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.

Ver. 11. And when Job’s three friends] His familiar friends, that did eat of his bread, as Psa 41:9 , that were as his own soul, Deu 13:6 , his bosom friends, and, therefore, precious jewels, such as could both keep counsel and give counsel. Of such there are but few to be found. Friends, there is no friend, said Socrates ( , ). Faithful friends, saith another, are in this age all for the most part gone in pilgrimage, and their return is uncertain. A friend is a changeable creature, saith a third; all in changeable colours, like the peacock, as often changed as moved. Job complaineth of these his chief and choice friends, that they were miserable comforters, physicians of no value, &c., Job 16:2 . Amicitia sit tantum inter binos, eosque bonos; Let such friendship be between two, there and good. such as were Jonathan and David, Corporibus geminis spiritus unus erat. The soul and the body were on one accord.

Heard of all this evil ] Whether by the ministry of the good or bad angels, or of neither, it skilleth not. Ill news is swift of foot, saith the Greek proverb ( ); and like ill weather, which comes ere it be sent for. The sins and miseries of good people are much talked of, and soon rumoured abroad. The Chaldee paraphrast here telleth of strange businesses, viz. that these three here mentioned (besides the report they heard of Job’s calamity) were moved to visit him by the wonders that happened with them at the same time; for their trees suddenly withered in their orchard, their bread at their table was turned into raw flesh, their wine into blood, &c. But this may well pass for a Jewish fable: the author of that paraphrase was R. Joseph Caecus, nothing so ancient or authentic as he who paraphraseth upon the historical books, but exceedingly full of mistakes, and seldom cometh he near the right meaning of the text, all along the Hagiographa.

They came every one from his own place ] More than these came to such a sight, no doubt; but these out of a desire and design to condole with him, and comfort him. But it happened far otherwise; for they tormented Job well nigh as much as Satan himself; though it were by ignorance, and unwittingly, rather than by ill will, or premeditated malice. Their very silence and gesture, before ever they spake a word, did so torment his mind, that at last he cries out in that bitter manner, as Job 3:1-26 ., like a frantic man, which, through some grievous sickness, hath lost his wits.

Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, &c. ] Idumeans all, likely, and men of much estimation for wisdom Jer 49:7 , “Is wisdom no more in Teman?” and godliness, as descended all of Abraham, whose care was to catechise his whole family, and to teach them the ways of God, Gen 18:19 . Their following disputations show as much, wherein they admonish him to repent; assuring him that he could be no less than a gross sinner, and a hypocrite, because so grievously afflicted. Job answereth their various speeches, tormented in body, perplexed in mind, but stoutly defending his own innocence, and seeming to tax the Lord also; like as dogs in a chase bark at their own masters

To this his friends reply sharply from Job 15:1-35 ; Job 16:1-22 ; Job 17:1-16 ; Job 18:1-21 ; Job 19:1-29 ; Job 20:1-29 ; Job 21:1-34 ; Job 22:1-30 , and he answereth them again with greater boldness and courage than before. Hereupon they begin a second reply, and here Eliphaz and Bildad only spake; the third man fainted and spake no more, for that Job was invincible, &c., till at length Elihu moderateth, censuring both parties; and God determineth, to Job’s conviction and final commendation.

For they had made an appointment together to come ] Not by accident, or at adventure, as Origen will needs have it against the text; but by solemn agreement: it was a pitched meeting. Neither stayed they till they were sent for, but came, as friends, to do Job all friendly offices; like as, in a fright, the blood and spirits run to the heart to relieve it. “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity,” Pro 17:17 . See Trapp on “ Pro 17:17 “

To mourn with him ] Heb. To shake the head, or other parts of the body, in token of commiseration; to bewail his condition, as Cyprian did the persecuted saints of his time, Cum singulis pectus meum copulo, I join with him with the singleness of my heart, saith he Moeroris pondera luctuosa participo, &c. With heaviness of heart I join weaping, “Who is offended, and I burn not?” 2Co 11:29 .

And to comfort him ] This they intended, but proved miserable comforters too, by reason of the deceitfulness of their hearts, fitly, therefore, compared to a broken or a deceitful bow, that carrieth the arrow a clean contrary way, Psa 78:57 . The word rendered to comfort, signifieth likewise to mourn with the mourning of repentance, to teach us here to begin our pity to others, to bewail their and our own sins. So Jonah prayed unto the Lord, Joh 4:2 . He thought to have prayed, but it proved that he brawled: See Trapp on “ Jon 4:2 “ These men’s words were as a murdering weapon in Job’s bones; pious they were and divine all along, but much misapplied. It is said of them that they handled an ill matter well, and Job a good cause as ill, especially when once he came to be wet through.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

every one. Hebrew. ‘ish. App-14.

Eliphaz. From Teman, which is connected with Esau and Edom (Gen 36:4, Gen 36:11. 1Ch 1:35, 1Ch 1:36, 1Ch 1:53, &c). Temanites famed for wisdom. He argued from the standpoint of human experience.

Bildad. Probably descended from Shuah, youngest son of Keturah by Abraham (Gen 25:2). Settled east of Palestine (Gen 25:6). He argued from human tradition.

Zophar. Probably from Naamah, southern frontier of Judah. He argued from the ground of human merit.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Job 2:11-13

Job 2:11-13

JOB’S THREE FRIENDS COME TO COMFORT HIM

“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to bemoan him and to comfort him. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.”

This paragraph reveals that Job’s fame was known throughout the East, that the disastrous reversal of his status in the eyes of men was widely known, that there were true friends who loved him, and who decided to come and comfort him. However, with friends like this, Job did not need any enemies! They considered the calamities which had befallen him as due to his sins; and, in the last analysis, their purpose was to persuade him to confess his wickedness and repent! Nothing could have brought any greater distress to Job than that. His friends were anchored in their false opinions by some very grave theological misconceptions. It was their view that, in this present life, righteous people were happy, healthy and prosperous, and that only the wicked were subjected to the type of disasters that had come to Job. How wrong they were!

“Eliphaz the Temanite” (Job 2:11). This man is supposed to have been an Edomite, a people praised by many in antiquity for their wisdom. Whatever wisdom he had was purely of a worldly nature; and his false theories were utterly useless in his conversations with Job. “He was the most important of the three friends, their leader and spokesman, as indicated by the fact that the speeches of the other two were largely echoes and reiterations of the speeches of Eliphaz.

“Bildad the Shuhite” (Job 2:11). The name Shuhite is supposed to be derived from Shuah, one of the sons of Abraham and Keturah (Gen 25:2). “The Assyrian area of Shuhu was located south of Haran near the middle of the Euphrates valley and might have been the land of Bildad. This second friend of Job gave an absolutely horrible picture of a wicked man in his second speech, which he unmercifully applied to his “friend” Job!

“Zophar the Naamathite” (Job 2:11). “The name Zophar is unknown outside of Job; and neither a tribe nor a land of Naamah is mentioned anywhere else.

“They lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not” (Job 2:12). Their being able to see Job at some distance has been received as evidence that Job’s place “among the ashes” (Job 2:8) was actually atop the garbage mound usually found adjacent to ancient cities, where rubbish and dried sewerage were burned. What a change had come upon Job. Once the wealthiest man in the East, he sat at the entrance to the city; but now he was an outcast, suffering miserably, despised and rejected by nearly everyone. No wonder his friends knew him not.

“They sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven” (Job 2:12). The experts at finding contradictions in the Bible think they have one here. “Some find a contradiction between putting dust on their heads and sprinkling it toward heaven. It is easily explained by the understanding that they cast the dust toward heaven, letting it fall upon their heads. How would you sprinkle dust on your head? Any dust cast heavenward would fall, would it not?

“They sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights” (Job 2:13). This, in all probability, means that Job’s disease was not leprosy.

“And none spake a word unto him” (Job 2:13). Some of the scholars suppose that this means that they sat silently for seven days and seven nights; but it appears more probable that the seven days and seven nights was the time required for the entire speeches and exchanges of the whole Book of Job. Certainly the arrangement of our English text allows such an interpretation. These words therefore could mean that, “They spake not a word unto him,” until Job opened the conversation.

Rawlinson wrote that, “The long silence may be accounted for by the fact that among the Jews, and among Orientals generally, it was a point of decorum, and one dictated by a fine and true feeling, not to speak to a person in deep affliction until he gave some intimation of a desire to be comforted.

It is amazing how many “purposes” of the Book of Job are mentioned by commentators; and perhaps another one might also be considered. Job’s epic sorrows and sufferings might have been designed by the Lord for the purpose of convincing Satan that hardships and sufferings do not constitute the best means for weakening and destroying faith.

It is the opposite, namely, such things as popularity, wealth, power and worldly glory that are the most likely human conditions that lead to the loss of faith and rejection of God. This minister of God’s Word has witnessed many examples of Christians who were faithful as long as they were poor, but who, when they became wealthy, delivered themselves unto evil without reservation.

By this permission which God granted Satan to test Job with every possible mortal sorrow, Satan learned the futility of such methods of destroying faith. Then Satan shifted his evil campaign against the faithful away from the plan that failed against Job.

If this is allowed to be true, it justifies, absolutely, all of the sufferings that Job endured. All mankind have benefited from them ever since.

E.M. Zerr:

Job 2:11. Friends is from REYA and Strong defines it, “an associate (more or less close).” The word does not necessarily mean one who is as near as the term is generally used. These men were former companions of Job and friends in a general sense. No doubt they were genuinely interested in the welfare of their associate, and would wish to see him regain his health and enjoyment of life. It is the inspired writer who says they came to mourn with him and to comfort him, so we are sure that was their real purpose. If they manifest error in their course of reasoning, it will not be through lack of sincerity, but from lack of knowledge. The three friends were from different localities but in communication with each other, for they came by appointment to meet with Job. Eliphaz was a descendant of Esau through Teman. ((fen. 36 :11). descended from Abraham Bildad through Shuah. (Gen 25:2.) Zophar was one of the people of a district in Judah called Naamah. (Jos 15:41.)

Job 2:12. Knew him not. We are certain this was not meant literally, for they knew it was Job and not someone else. I shall quote the entire definition for NAKAR, the Hebrew word for knew: “a primitive root; properly to scrutinize, i. e. look intently at; hence (with recognition implied) to acknowledge, be acquainted with, care for, respect, revere, or (with suspicion implied), to disregard, reject, resign, dissimulate (as if ignorant or disowning).”–Strong. I hope the reader will take note of all the elements of this definition. Considering the different shades of meaning as seen in the definition, and the circumstances connected with the case, I would render the phrase, “saw no resemblance of Job as they had known him.” Yet they knew that it was their very friend Job, but 0, what an awful condition he was in! They were forced to weep aloud for grief. They also rent their mantles and used dust in the manner of the times when profound sorrow was felt. Toward heaven means they put the dust on the tops of their heads, indicating that they were completely under the burden of woe.

Job 2:13. Grief is from a word that is translated also by pain and sorrow. No doubt that all of the elements of the word were present. We know that Job was in constant pain from his condition, and we are sure also that such a state surrounding him would produce profound grief. This terrible condition was so visible that it overcame the speech of the three friends. Even at a distance his condition had appeared so depressing to them that they were brought to audible weeping and the other indications of compassion described in the preceding verse. Now when they came into his immediate presence, and could realize the whole situation of Job, they were rendered speechless. The scene was so overwhelmingly sad that I have not the words to describe it fully. All parties were seated on the ground, In seeing and speaking distance of each other, but for one whole week not a word was spoken. Through the long period of 7 days and nights, abject silence was their mute acknowledgement of the unspeakably low estate of their friend.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

III. THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN JOB AND HIS FRIENDS

1. First Series of Controversies

CHAPTER 2:11-13 The Friends Arrival

Job 2:11-13. We now enter upon the main section of the book. The dark shadow of the accuser of the brethren has disappeared and in his place Jobs three friends appear upon the scene. The news of the awful misfortunes had reached them; they made an appointment together to mourn with him and to comfort him. As they are now taking a prominent part in this drama we must examine their names and get some knowledge as to their personality. The first friend is Eliphaz the Temanite. Teman is in Idumea. He may have been the son of Esau (Gen 36:10-11). His name means my God is fine gold. Teman was noted for its wisdom. is wisdom no more in Teman? (Jer 49:7). The second is Bildad the Shuhite. His name means son of contention, which expresses the character he reveals in his speeches. His name can also be identified with the patriarchal age. Shuah was the sixth son of Abraham by Keturah (Gen 25:1-34). He is also mentioned in connection with Esau, Edom and Teman. Shuah means depression or prostration. The third friend is Zophar the Naamathite. Of his origin we know nothing. His name means to twitter like a bird chirps and twitters. And his addresses, consisting in violent utterances, reveal the senseless and harmless twittering of a bird.

There can be no question that all three were, like Job, God-fearing men. They formed with Job in the patriarchal age a kind of intellectual and religious aristocracy, in the midst of the surrounding idolators. How long their journey took after the news of Jobs condition had reached them we do not know. It must have been months later after Job was first stricken, that they came to visit him. During that time the disease of Job developed fully; his misery did not become less. At last the friends arrived. And as they saw the ash-heap and the miserable figure upon it, they knew him not. He was so disfigured and distorted by the suffering and the disease that they failed to recognize him. They had known him in the days of his great prosperity, when young men were held by his personality in awe, when old men arose to do him honor, when princes refrained from talking and nobles held their peace (29:7-10). What a sad spectacle to see him in this deplorable condition. Their sympathy is expressed by weeping, the rending of their garments and the sprinkling of dust upon their heads toward heaven. What pain it must have given them when they saw that his grief and suffering were so great! Then follows an impressive silence of seven days and seven nights. They are stricken dumb and find no words to utter. But while their lips did not speak their minds were deeply engaged with the problem which ere long they would take up in controversy with the afflicted one. And the question uppermost must have been, How can God, a righteous God, permit this good man to be in this condition?–Why is he stripped of all and in this horrible condition?

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

friends: Job 6:14, Job 16:20, Job 19:19, Job 19:21, Job 42:7, Pro 17:17, Pro 18:24, Pro 27:10

Temanite: Job 6:19, Job 15:1, Gen 36:11, Gen 36:15, Jer 49:7

Shuhite: Job 8:1, Job 18:1, Gen 25:2, 1Ch 1:32

to come: Job 42:11, Gen 37:35, Isa 51:19, Joh 11:19, Rom 12:15, 1Co 12:26, Heb 13:3

to comfort: Job 13:4, Job 16:2

Reciprocal: Gen 25:15 – Tema Gen 36:4 – Eliphaz Gen 36:34 – Temani 1Ch 1:45 – Temanites 1Ch 7:22 – and his brethren Job 4:1 – Eliphaz Job 6:21 – ye see Job 11:1 – Zophar Job 20:1 – Zophar Oba 1:9 – O

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

JOBS TWO FOES AND THREE FRIENDS

Satan his wife Jobs three friends.

Job 2:7; Job 2:9; Job 2:11

The outward calamities from which Job first suffered are narrated in chapter 1. Affliction, affecting Jobs property and even family, failed to destroy his religious integrity.

Then Satan says that the test has not been a complete and a sufficient one. You do not really try a man by touching his outward circumstances, only by touching his body and putting in peril his life. God even permits the trial to go this length. Let disease in its most shameful and suffering forms afflict My servant, and see by that whether he is heart sincere. This form of the trial is given in chapter 2., and the points may be taken in the following order:

I. Gods inquiry shows that while Satan wrought the mischief in Jobs circumstances, God was matching Job; and notice what He was watching, even to see how Jobs character stood the test of trial. That is what God watches still.

God asks whether what he saw in Job others too had seen, so that the example of his trustfulness and integrity might have its influence.

II. Satans proverb.Dr. Mason Good explains the proverb thus: The skins or spoils of beasts, in the rude and early ages of man, were the most valuable property he could acquire, and that for which he most frequently combatted. Skins hence became the chief representation of property, and in many parts of the world continue so to the present hour. The idea is, that a man would be willing to lose all, even his religion, rather than his life. Satan can recognise no principle of action but selfishness, and finds in it alone the secret of Jobs firmness.

III. Jobs sufferings.The Speakers Commentary gives the following explanation of Jobs disease: The original word means an intense heat, hence a burning and ulcerous swelling, or leprosy in its most terrible form, taking its name from the appearance of the body, which is covered with a knotty, cancerous bark, like the hide of an elephant; the whole frame is in a state of progressive dissolution, ending slowly but surely in death. The foulness, loathsomeness, irritation, and intense pain make Jobs sufferings to be extreme, and the worst that Satan could devise.

Compare the extreme sufferings by which the obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ was tested. (See Psalms 22)

IV. His wifes foolishness.Note two things: (1) part of Jobs trial came out of this failure of faith in the partner who ought to have comforted and helped him. And (2) that we may often find it a more testing trial to look upon the sufferings of others than to bear suffering ourselves. This wife spoke hastily and, therefore, foolishly; she could not see the end of the Lord.

V. His friends sympathy.However they turned out, they began well. See the signs of their sincere and brotherly sympathy. Their silence did very much more for Job than their speech.

The question to press home in closing is this: What will our personal piety and godly principle stand? For we, too, must be buffeted in life, even as Job was; and that not only by calamity, but by suffering also, and temptation, and even by the failure and misunderstanding of those about us, who ought to help us. Only if our godly principle is well settled and centred, can we hope to hold fast our integrity in the evil day.

Illustration

However ye might err in after-speech,

The mute expression of that voiceless woe

Whereby ye sought your sympathy to show

With him of Uz, doth eloquently preach,

Teaching a lesson it were well to teach

Some comforters, of utterance less slow,

Prone to believe that they more promptly know

Griefs mighty depths, and by their words can reach.

Seven days and nights, in stillness as profound

As that of chaos, patiently ye sate

By the heart-stricken and the desolate.

And though your sympathy might fail to sound

The fathomless depth of his dark spirits wound,

Not less your silence was sublimely great.

F. Quarles.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Job 2:11. When Jobs three friends heard of all this, &c. Who were persons eminent for birth and quality, for wisdom and knowledge, and for the profession of the true religion, being probably, as has been observed on Job 1:1, of the posterity of Abraham, akin to Job, and living in the same country with him. See that note. The preserving so much wisdom and piety among those that were not children of the promise was a happy presage of Gods grace to the Gentiles, when the partition wall should, in the latter days, be taken down. Esau lost the birthright, and when he should have regained it, was rejected, yet it appears many of his descendants inherited some of the best blessings.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 2:11-13. Jobs Three Friends Come to Condole with him.The friends are Eastern princes like himself (LXX kings), hence live at a distance. They knew him not, because he was so disfigured. They threw dust upon their heads, symbolising that Job s fortune and they themselves along with it are ruined by heaven-sent calamities, as a fertile land might be by dust-showers. They are so overwhelmed, that they sit seven days and seven nights, mourning for Job as if he were dead. Seven days are the days of mourning for the dead (Sir 22:12). Thus we come to the end of the prologue, between which and the epilogue (Job 42:7-17) in the old Volksbuch must have been an account of the debate between Job and his friends, very different from the poem which we now possess. The friends evidently tried to comfort him, but what they said, we can now only infer. They certainly did not speak to him like his wife, but yet they spoke so wrongly of God, that He would have taken vengeance on them, had it not been for Jobs intercession (Job 42:7).

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

2:11 Now when Job’s three {p} friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.

(p) Who were men of authority, wise and learned, and as the Septuagint writes, kings, and came to comfort him, but when they saw how he was visited, they conceived an evil opinion of him, as though he was a hypocrite and so justly plagued by God for his sins.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

C. Job’s Comforters 2:11-13

Actually, four men came to visit Job, though the writer did not mention Elihu’s presence until chapter 32. Eliphaz seems to have been the eldest for several reasons. His name occurs first (Job 2:11; Job 42:9), he spoke before the others, his speeches are longer and more mature, and God spoke to him as the representative of the others (Job 42:7). Eliphaz is an Edomite name (Gen 36:4). He was probably either from Teman in Edom (cf. Jer 49:7; Oba 1:9) or from Tema in Arabia. Bildad may have been a relative of Shuah, Abraham’s youngest son (Gen 25:2). Zophar may have come from Naamah, a Judean town (Jos 15:41), if it existed then.

Evidently the disfigurement that resulted from Job’s disease prevented Job’s acquaintances from recognizing him and led to their extreme grief that they manifested in ways common in their culture. The writer did not explain why they did not speak to him for seven days. This may have been traditional, or they may have spoken to no one out of respect for him. A week was the usual time of mourning for the dead (cf. Gen 50:10; 1Sa 31:13; Sir 22:12), so they may have been mourning for him as one already dead. Perhaps they discussed his condition among themselves but did not do so with him. Apparently they waited for him to speak first (ch. 3) before they addressed him directly, as was customary and respectful.

"For one of them to speak prior to the sufferer would have been in bad taste." [Note: Elmer B. Smick, "Job," in 1 Kings-Job, vol. 4 of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, p. 887.]

In any case their commitment to him, as seen in their patient waiting to address him, shows their genuine friendship. How many friends do you have that would travel a long distance to visit you in an illness and sit with you silently for seven days out of respect for your pain?

"In overwhelming sorrows, true friendship almost invariably demonstrates itself more perfectly by silence than by speech. And even in spite of the fact that Job’s friends caused him sorrow by their words, they are more to be admired because what they thought concerning him they dared to say to him, rather than about him to others." [Note: G. Campbell Morgan, An Exposition of the Whole Bible, p. 202.]

"Don’t try to explain everything; explanations never heal a broken heart. If his friends had listened to him, accepted his feelings, and not argued with him, they would have helped him greatly; but they chose to be prosecuting attorneys instead of witnesses." [Note: Wiersbe, p. 14.]

The prologue (chs. 1-2) sets the stage for what follows by informing us, the readers, that Job’s suffering was not due to his sins. None of the characters in the story knew this fact except God and Satan. We also see the heavenly dimension and the spiritual warfare taking place-that were also unknown to the human characters in this drama.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)