Job 2:11 to 13 and Job 42:7 to 10 · Story · Friendship
Job's Three Friends
Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite came to comfort Job in his suffering.
The friends who wronged Job with their words were forgiven through his prayer for them.
Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw how intense his suffering was.
- Who
- Job
- When
- The book of Job names no year for the events
Summary
Three friends came to Job when they heard of his suffering. They wept, tore their robes and sat with him in silence for a week. Then they spoke, and their speeches pressed Job to confess a sin he denied. At the end of the book the LORD sent them to Job with an offering.
- Eliphaz and Bildad each speak three times and Zophar twice, and then the three stop answering (Job 32:1).
- Job called his friends miserable comforters, and he asked them for pity (Job 16:2; Job 19:21).
- The LORD's verdict was that the friends had not spoken of Him accurately, as Job had (Job 42:7).
They Came to Comfort
The three planned the visit together before any of them saw Job.
Job's Three Friends tells how Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar came to Job in his suffering, and failed him in their speeches. It belongs to the value of friendship, because the book shows in one account what a friend does well, what a friend does wrong, and how a wronged friend forgives.
The question it answers is what the three did right as friends, what they did wrong, and how the friendship ended. It follows them from their coming to the seven silent days, through the speeches and Job's charge against them, to the LORD's verdict and Job's prayer.
The Hebrew of Job 2:11 calls the three re'ei 'Iyov, the friends of Job, with the noun rea.
They "met together to go and sympathize with Job and comfort him" (Job 2:11).
The Friends in Fourteen Steps
The friends move from silent mourners to speakers and then to men who need Job's prayer.
The friends' speeches fill the space between their week of silence and the LORD's verdict.
- They hear and set out"each of them came from his home"Job 2:11
- They mourn when they see him"each man tore his robe and threw dust in the air over his head"Job 2:12
- Eliphaz's first speech"Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:"Job 4:1
- Bildad's first speech"Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:"Job 8:1
- Zophar's first speech"Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:"Job 11:1
- Eliphaz's second speech"Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:"Job 15:1
- Bildad's second speech"Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:"Job 18:1
- Zophar's second speech"Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:"Job 20:1
- Eliphaz's third speech"Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:"Job 22:1
- Bildad's third speech"Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:"Job 25:1
- The three fall silent"So these three men stopped answering Job"Job 32:1
- Elihu, a fourth speaker, comes in"This kindled the anger of Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite"Job 32:2
- The three bring the offering"went and did as the LORD had told them"Job 42:9
- Job prays for them"After Job had prayed for his friends"Job 42:10
A timeline of fourteen steps from Job 2:11 to Job 42:10, each with the Berean words of its verse.
Bildad's second speech, Zophar's second speech, Eliphaz's third speech, Bildad's third speech, The three fall silent, Elihu, a fourth speaker, comes in, The three bring the offering, Job prays for them
Seven Days on the Ground
The friends kept silence for a week, and the text gives its reason.
When they first saw him from far off, "they could barely recognize Job" (Job 2:12). They wept aloud before they reached him.
The book gives the friends' own reason for the silence, which was the depth of the suffering they saw.
Albert Barnes, in his Notes (1832 to 1869), judged that "the feelings of the three friends were entirely kind, and all that they did was expressive of sympathy for the sufferer".
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown (1871) allowed that "This silence may have been due to a rising suspicion of evil in Job". Their chief reason was another, that "extraordinary griefs are too great for utterance."
John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, took the seven days as "the usual time of mourning for the dead".
What Job Asked of a Friend
Job told the friends what he needed from them and what they gave him instead.
A despairing man should have the kindness of his friend, even if he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.Job states here the duty of a friend to a man in despair, the duty he says the three have failed.
He called them "worthless physicians" (Job 13:4), and he called their comfort "empty words" (Job 21:34).
“I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all.Job's name for the three judges their comfort by what it did to the one who received it.
His plea of Job 19:21 asks the same men for pity: "Have pity on me, my friends, have pity, for the hand of God has struck me" (Job 19:21).
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), says what Job's friends lacked as comforters.
“When we are under convictions of sin, terrors of conscience, and the arrests of death, it is only the blessed Spirit that can comfort effectually; all others, without him, do it miserably, and sing songs to a heavy heart, to no purpose.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Job 16:2Puritan
The Speeches in Outline
The book opens each speech of the three with the speaker's name and his people.
The speeches run in three rounds from Job 4 to Job 25, and Job answers each one in turn.
Elihu, who speaks after them, is never counted among the three.
What the friends taught about suffering and sin, and where the book shows that teaching falling short, is taught in The Retribution Teaching and Its Limits.
The Friends' Charge and Job's Integrity
The friends pressed Job to admit a sin, and he held to his integrity against them.
The charge the friends brought against Job's integrity, and the oath by which he answered it, are taught in Job's Integrity.
The Verdict and the Sacrifice
The LORD judged the friends' words about Him and told them how to be forgiven.
After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, He said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you and your two friends. For you have not spoken about Me accurately, as My servant Job has. So now, take seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. Then My servant Job will pray for you, for I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken accurately about Me, as My servant Job has.”The verdict stands here whole because it names the friends' fault, their speech about God, and the remedy, Job's prayer.
The book faults the friends twice. The LORD's verdict names their words about Him, and Job's charge names their treatment of him.
The same verdict, read as the end of Job's patience, is taught in The Patience of Job.
John Chrysostom, in his Commentary on Job, set the offering for the friends in Job 42:8 beside the burnt offerings Job had made for his children (Job 1:5).
Voices on the Prayer for the Friends
An eighteenth-century commentator read Job's prayer for the friends as the act of a friend.
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible, finds love joined to faith in Job's prayer for the men who wronged him.
Read the page on Matthew Henry
“Note, We are really doing our business when we are praying for our friends, if we pray in a right manner, for in those prayers there is not only faith, but love. Christ has taught us to pray with and for others in teaching us to say, Our Father; and, in seeking mercy for others, we may find mercy ourselves.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Job 42:9Puritan
Does Job's Prayer Point to Christ?
John Wesley and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read a type of Christ, and Matthew Henry read a lesson for every friend.
The question is whether Job's prayer for the men who wronged him foreshadows Christ or teaches what any friend should do.
The typological readingJohn Wesley; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown
John Wesley wrote that "as Job prayed and offered sacrifice for those who had grieved and wounded his spirit, so Christ prayed and died for his persecutors".
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown wrote that "The forgiving spirit of Job foreshadows the love of Jesus Christ and of Christians to enemies".
The objection: the book itself draws no line to a coming one at this point, and it tells the prayer as an act of Job among his friends.
A lesson for every friendMatthew Henry
Matthew Henry took Job's intercession as the pattern of what every friend owes one who has done him harm.
The objection: the LORD Himself appointed Job to pray and bound the friends' pardon to his prayer (Job 42:8), which is more than a friend's duty.
The Friendship Restored
The account of the friends ends where it began, with the three coming to Job.
The three who came as comforters and could not comfort ended the account as men who needed the help of a friend they had wronged.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Hebrew Old Testament, the tagged Hebrew text (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on Job 2:13.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Job 2:13.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, on Job 2:13.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Job 16:2.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Job 42:9.
- John Chrysostom, Commentary on Job, on Job 42:8.
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, on Job 42:10.
- Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Job 42:10.
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