Job’s Counselors Arrive

As the story of Job unfolds, we learn that there was a reason why Satan did not kill Job’s wife, when he took the lives of Job’s seven sons and three daughters. Satan used Mrs. Job in the same way in which he had used Eve in Eden–to vocalize the ends which Satan hoped to bring to pass, that Job would curse God to his face. The same holds true of Job’s three friends, who respond to their friend’s predicament with every intention of comforting Job in his suffering, but who, whether they know it or not, are actually doing the devil’s bidding. It is their presence in the city of Uz, which plunges Job into greater depths of despair than previously witnessed. With the arrival of these three “wise men,” Job descends from a state of physical misery into a state of spiritual torment and lament, as will be revealed in Job 3.

We are introduced to Job’s three friends in verses 11-13 of Job 2. According to Job 2:11, “When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.” The fact that Job’s three friends had to travel from their homes indicates that several months had transpired (cf. Job 7:3) between the time of Job’s loss of everything and the speeches from Job and his friends which begin in Job 3:1 ff. Some months earlier, when Job’s wife told him to admit that he had sinned and then to curse God and die, Job’s response was resolute (2:10). “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”

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