The High Water Mark of Friendship Text: Job 2:11-13
Introduction: The Arrival of the Counselors
We come now to a pivotal moment in the saga of Job. The Accuser has done his worst, twice. Job's life has been systematically dismantled, piece by agonizing piece, by the sovereign permission of God. He has lost his fortune, his children, and his health. He sits in an ash heap, scraping his oozing sores with a piece of pottery, a living monument to inexplicable suffering. His wife has offered her sage counsel, which was to curse God and die. And in the midst of this utter dereliction, on the horizon, three figures appear. These are Job's friends.
Before we get to what these men say, and they will say a great deal, we must first deal with what they do. And what they do, initially, is profoundly right. In fact, what we are about to witness in these three verses is the high water mark of their wisdom and friendship. Before they open their mouths and let all the bad air out, their actions are a model of covenantal loyalty. They get everything right, right up to the point where they get everything wrong. And in this, they are a sober warning to all of us who would seek to comfort the afflicted.
The world believes that when someone is suffering, the most important thing is to say something. Offer a platitude. Share a theory. Find a reason. Explain the mechanics of the universe to the man whose universe has just been obliterated. But the wisdom of God, displayed here in the friends' initial, intuitive response, is a wisdom of presence before it is a wisdom of pronouncements. They begin with a ministry of compassionate silence. Had they maintained that silence, they would be remembered as the wisest counselors in Scripture. But they did not, and so they are remembered as cautionary tales. Let us therefore pay close attention to what they did right, so that we might understand more clearly the nature of their subsequent failure.
The Text
Then Job’s three friends heard of all this calamity that had come upon him. So they came each one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to console him and comfort him.
Then they lifted up their eyes at a distance and did not recognize him, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And each of them tore his robe, and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky.
Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.
(Job 2:11-13 LSB)
Covenantal Loyalty in Motion (v. 11)
We begin with their resolve:
"Then Job’s three friends heard of all this calamity that had come upon him. So they came each one from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to console him and comfort him." (Job 2:11)
The first thing to note is that friendship, true friendship, is an action. It is not a sentiment. These men heard, and they came. This was not a small undertaking. These were not next-door neighbors. They came from their own places, which means they undertook significant travel. They "made an appointment together." This was a coordinated, deliberate effort. This was covenantal. They were bound to Job, not by mere affinity, but by a shared understanding of loyalty and duty. In the ancient world, men of their stature, and Job's stature, were not just private individuals. They were chieftains, heads of clans. Their friendship was a matter of public and political significance. They were, in a sense, Job's cabinet, and the head of state had been struck by a disaster of cosmic proportions.
Their stated purpose was "to console him and comfort him." Their intentions were entirely noble. They saw a brother in agony, and their immediate, coordinated response was to move toward the pain, not away from it. This is the first test of any true friendship. Does it move toward the ash heap? Or does it find reasons to be busy elsewhere? Most of what passes for friendship in our shallow age is based on personality and shared amusements. But true friendship is forged in shared character and tested in shared suffering. These men, whatever their later theological blunders, pass this initial test with flying colors. They heard, they coordinated, they traveled, and they came with the right intent. They came to be with their friend.
The Shock of Reality (v. 12)
When they arrive, the reality of Job's condition hits them with the force of a physical blow.
"Then they lifted up their eyes at a distance and did not recognize him, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And each of them tore his robe, and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky." (Job 2:12)
They saw him from a distance and did not recognize him. Think of it. This was Job, the greatest man among all the people of the East. A man of stature, of dignity, of robust health. The man they saw was a ruin. The disease had so ravaged his body that he was unrecognizable. The calamity had not just taken his possessions; it had effaced his very identity. And their response is visceral and immediate. There is no stiff upper lip here. They lifted up their voices and wept. This was not quiet sniffling; this was loud, unrestrained lamentation.
They then engage in the traditional signs of deep mourning. They tore their robes, an outward sign of an inward tearing of the heart. They threw dust over their heads, identifying with Job's humiliation, sitting as he was in the dust and ashes. They were not detached observers. They entered into his grief. They took his humiliation upon themselves. Their sorrow was not feigned. It was a genuine, heart-felt, sympathetic agony. They saw the wreckage of their friend, and it wrecked them. This is what love does. It does not stand apart and analyze. It draws near and weeps. Before they tried to be theologians, they were simply friends, and in this, they were magnificent.
The Ministry of Silence (v. 13)
What follows is perhaps the most profound act of pastoral care in the entire book.
"Then they sat down on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights with no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great." (Job 2:13)
They sat down on the ground with him. They did not pull up chairs to a comfortable distance. They got down in the dirt with him. They entered his ash heap. And there they stayed for seven days and seven nights. A full week. And they did so in complete silence. Why? "For they saw that his pain was very great."
This is the pinnacle of their wisdom. They recognized that Job's suffering was so immense, so monolithic, that words were useless. Any word would have been an insult. To offer a cheap explanation or a pious platitude in the face of such devastation would have been a profound violation. His grief was an ocean, and they did not try to bail it out with a thimble. They simply had the humility to be overwhelmed by it alongside him. Their silence was an act of reverence, both for the depth of their friend's pain and, though they did not know it, for the sovereignty of the God who had allowed it.
This is where we must all take notes. So often, in our awkwardness and desire to "fix" things, we rush in with words. We feel compelled to speak. But sometimes the most godly, most compassionate, most wise thing we can do is simply show up, sit down, and shut up. Your presence speaks more loudly than your platitudes. Your willingness to simply be there, in the dirt, without an answer, is a far greater comfort than a pocketful of well-intentioned but ultimately hollow explanations. The friends' silence acknowledged that some suffering is beyond immediate comprehension. It was a silent confession that they did not have the answer key to the ways of God. And in this, they were profoundly right.
When Good Intentions Curdle
So where did it all go wrong? They started so well. The tragedy of Job's friends is that they abandoned their initial, correct posture. After seven days, the silence was broken, first by Job's lament, and then by their own torrent of words. And in their words, they revealed their core theological error.
Their problem was not that they were wrong, but that they were right woodenly. They possessed a true piece of theology: God blesses the righteous and punishes the wicked. This is taught throughout Scripture, particularly in the Proverbs. But they took this general principle and applied it like a rigid, mathematical formula to Job's specific, extreme case. They affirmed the consequent. Because suffering is often the result of sin, they concluded that this immense suffering must be the result of some immense, hidden sin. Their system was neat, tidy, and predictable. And Job's reality was shattering it. So, rather than adjust their system, they tried to hammer Job into it.
Their compassionate grief curdled into dogmatic accusation. They began as comforters and ended as tormentors. They chose their theological system over their friend. They were more concerned with defending their vision of a tidy universe than with loving the man in front of them. They could not tolerate a mystery. They could not bear a suffering that did not "make sense" within their retributional framework. And so, they sinned against Job, and they misrepresented God.
The lesson for us is stark. Our theological systems must be robust enough to account for the hard edges of reality, for the Jobs of the world. And our love for the brethren must be strong enough that we are willing to sit in the ashes with them, even when we don't have the answers. We are called to weep with those who weep before we are called to lecture those who weep.
Ultimately, these friends failed because they were not the true Comforter. Job needed a mediator, a redeemer, which he cries out for later. He needed someone who could be both with him in the ashes and righteous before God. He needed Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate friend who hears of our calamity and comes from His own place, from heaven to earth. He sees us in our sin and sickness, a state far more grotesque than Job's, and He is moved with compassion. He doesn't just tear His robe; His own body is torn for us. He doesn't just throw dust on His head; He is cast into the dust of death for us. He sits with us, not for seven days, but for all our days, and He secures for us a comfort that is not silent, but that speaks a better word, a word of grace, forgiveness, and resurrection. He is the friend who sticks closer than a brother, and His counsel is always true.