In Job, chapter two, verse eleven, is a part of the Friends of Job section that stems from the theme verse until verse thirteen. After hearing of Job’s adversity, his three friends come to sympathize with him and comfort him. The Book of Job records their dialogues with the sufferer. Their perspective represents a popular but incomplete theology, for they believed that only good things happen to the godly, while adversity always indicates sin in one’s life. They sincerely tried to help Job by urging him to admit to sin. In the end, God rebuked them for their error, as in Job forty-two, verse seven.
The three friends were Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. First is Eliphaz the Temanite, the son of Esau and Adah, and the father of Teman, as in Genesis thirty-six, verse four, and First Chronicles one, verses thirty-five through thirty-six. Eliphaz, on him, falls the main burden of the argument that God’s retribution in this world is perfect and sure. And consequently, the suffering may be evidence of previous sin, as in chapters four, five, fifteen, and twenty-two.
Bildad the Shuhite is the second of Job’s three friends. He was a descendant of Abraham by Keturah, as in Genesis twenty-five, verses one through two. Bildad the Shuhite was a neighbor and friend of Job and came to console him in his affliction. He responds in chapter eight, verses one through twenty-two, chapter eighteen, verses one to twenty-one, and chapter twenty-five, verses one through six, respectively. His chief topics are the suddenness, swiftness, and terribleness of God’s wrath upon hypocrites and oppressors.
Zophar the Naamathite is the third of Job’s three friends. Still, there is no other trace of this name in the Bible. However, he responds to Job’s situation in chapters eleven and twenty.
The friends of Job seem noted for their rank, as well as for wisdom and piety. Much of the comfort of this life lies in friendship with the prudent and virtuous. Coming to mourn with him, they vented grief which they felt. Coming to comfort him, they sat down with him. It would appear that they suspected his unexampled troubles were judgments for some crimes, which he had vailed under his professions of godliness. Many look upon it only as a compliment to visit their friends in sorrow; we must look at life. And if the example of Job’s friends is not enough to lead us to pity the afflicted, let us seek the mind that was in Christ.