Job's Three Friends

Biblical Account

When Job lost his possessions and his children and was struck with disease, three friends arranged to come to him together. Seeing him so disfigured that they could hardly recognize him, they wept aloud. They then sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights without speaking a word (Job 2:11–13).

From chapter 4 through chapter 27 of the Book of Job, Job and his three friends debate in three successive cycles of speeches.

• Eliphaz (chapters 4–5, 15, 22): Appealing to a vision he received in the night, he argues that no innocent person has ever perished: "who ever perished, being innocent?" (Job 4:7).
• Bildad (chapters 8, 18, 25): He suggests that Job's children were punished because they had sinned, and he urges Job to inquire of the tradition of the fathers (Job 8:4, 8:8).
• Zophar (chapters 11, 20): The sharpest of the three, he goes so far as to say that God has exacted of Job less than his iniquity deserves (Job 11:6). Zophar does not speak in the third cycle.

The arguments of all three rest on the principle of retribution, the idea that suffering is the consequence of sin. Job rebuts their reasoning, calling them "miserable comforters" (Job 16:2). In chapters 32–37 a young man named Elihu appears separately, but he is not counted among the three friends.

At the end of the book, God tells Eliphaz, "My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath." He commands them to offer a burnt offering of seven bullocks and seven rams and to have Job pray for them. When Job prayed for his friends, God restored his fortunes (Job 42:7–10).

Significance Within Scripture

Within the Book of Job, the three friends represent the doctrine of retribution that was the conventional wisdom of their day. Their speeches serve to throw Job's protests and God's response into sharper relief. The same question carries over into the New Testament. When the disciples asked Jesus why a man had been born blind, He answered that it was not because of the sin of the man or of his parents (John 9:1–3).

The New Testament does not mention the three friends by name. However, in 1 Corinthians 3:19 Paul quotes the words "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness," which come from a speech of Eliphaz (Job 5:13).

Interpretation and Points of Discussion

• Content versus application: Paul's quotation, as Scripture, of words spoken by men whom God rebuked raises an interpretive question. A common explanation is that some of what they said is true as a general principle, but that they misapplied it to Job's situation. John Calvin is also known to have taken this view in his sermons on Job.
• Positive aspects: Their initial conduct, remaining silently at Job's side for seven days, is frequently cited as a good example of how to care for those who are suffering.
• Later traditions: The biblical text identifies the friends only by their places of origin. By contrast, an addition at the end of the Septuagint version of Job and certain apocryphal writings reportedly preserve a tradition that presents them as kings of their respective regions. Some identify Eliphaz with Eliphaz the son of Esau (Genesis 36:10–11), and some connect Shuah, Bildad's place of origin, with Shuah the son of Abraham (Genesis 25:2). The text itself, however, does not make these identifications.

In the Korean Church

In the Korean church, the three friends appear mainly in sermons on suffering and comfort. They are often used as an example to teach that one should not hastily judge a sick person's suffering to be the result of sin. In pastoral visitation and Christian counseling, when the importance of listening and simply being present is emphasized, the friends' seven days of silence is often contrasted with their later condemnation of Job. Critics of prosperity theology and generational curse theology sometimes liken these teachings to the reasoning of the three friends, who regarded suffering as the direct result of sin or a curse.