Job’s Friends
Job 2:11-13
Next we meet Job’s friends: Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuhah, and Zophar from Naamath. They were from different countries, but they met to travel together to go see Job. They went to console and comfort him.
That seems like a big deal. Having friends in foreign places in Biblical times strikes me as remarkable. I’m guessing they were friends of some means, maybe even friends with Job because of his own wealth. (He was the greatest man in the East at one point, after all.) I don’t know how far away those countries were (either from each other or from Job), but the idea that these three guys cared enough about Job to go to him seems pretty impressive to me.
These friends appear to have the most caring motives we’ve seen so far in the story. They aren’t proving a point or placing a bet. They aren’t coming to jeer or rub it in or poke fun; they just want to keep him company, console him, and comfort him. That is beautiful.
Their response upon seeing Job seems genuine: they hardly recognize him. They weep. They cry out. They tear their robes. They anoint themselves with dirt. They do what they can to meet Job in his grief. And then they do the most beautiful thing of all: they sit with him.
I’ve heard it said that grief needs a witness; I have certainly felt that in my own life. Job’s friends are witness to his grief. And not just for a minute, either. Seven days and nights, they sat with him. No one said a word because they could tell his suffering was great.
Since I seem to be kind of obsessed with the idea of time thus far in Job, the seven days and seven nights things strikes me. Even in just regular days, that’s a pretty long time to sit there and be quiet. If seven is a number of completion in Bible times, it could have been even longer than one of our weeks. Job’s friends sat with him for the same amount of time it took for God to make the world. That is not nothing.
I’ve always kind of thought that Job lost everything, but I’m here to tell you that if you have 3 friends who will drop everything and come to you when you’re hurting, you have plenty. If you have friends who will sit with you in your darkness and just be present, you have abundance. It might not feel like it right then, but you do. Your friends can get you through a lot. A whole damn lot.