Bible · NudgeRead the passage
Job 2:11-13
Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him. When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky. So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
In the King James Version
Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.
What was happening around this
The narrator speaks about Job and his three friends; Job is the recipient of their intended sympathy and comfort. The setting is after Job’s bodily affliction and exchange with his wife (vv. 8–10); v. 13’s seven days of silence comes just before Job begins the dialogue in chapter 3. Henry T. C. Sun notes a scholarly source-critical view that the friend notices in 2:11–13 and 42:7–10a were added when the dialogues were incorporated into an older narrative; that is contested literary analysis, not an assertion made by the text.
Source: Sun, “Commentary on Job 42:1–6, 10–17,” Working Preacher
The verses on either side
- He took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself with, and he sat among the ashes.
- Then his wife said to him, “Do you still maintain your integrity? Renounce God, and die.”
- But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job didn’t sin with his lips.
- Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him.
- When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky.
- So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.
Where this comes up