Job and his friends

Job and his friends represent a fundamental theological clash—between those who cling to conventional wisdom and someone whose suffering shatters the neat formulas that wisdom offers.

The three friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—came to comfort Job after hearing of his misfortunes, and their initial response was genuinely compassionate: they sat with him mourning for seven days without speaking.[1] This silence was their finest moment. But once those seven days ended, their empathy transformed into debate about the causes of Job’s suffering.[2]

The friends operated from a shared theological framework: they insisted that God follows certain rules without exception, particularly the law of retribution and reward—if you are good, you will be rewarded; if you are bad, you will suffer proportionately.[3] Each friend—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, along with the younger Elihu—argued fiercely around the same thesis: God’s righteous person does not suffer; he has no pain; he experiences no trial or oppression.[4] Eliphaz’s chief message was that Job must have sinned and that was why he was suffering.[1] Bildad claimed Job was suffering because of sin, and according to the theology of divine earthly retribution, Job deserved his punishment, emphasizing that God is just because he never rejects an innocent person but punishes the wicked.[1] Zophar focused his attack on Job’s self-proclaimed righteousness, asserting that Job had lost his prosperity because he was wicked.[1]

Yet they were handicapped by a faulty theological perspective that led them to say things which proved more painful to Job than even the boils on his body.[3] Job refused their words by calling them liars, advisors of the defeated, and annoying consolers.[4] In the end, even God rejected the pre-packaged theological speeches of Job’s friends.[4] Their speeches represent an “anti-theology”—it looks like theology but it is not theology.[4] The friends defended their notion of God and justice “at all costs,” unable to conceive that a righteous person might suffer greatly.[3]

[1] Sammy Githuku Wangonya, “The Book of Job: A Challenge to African Spirituality Regarding Human Suffering,” in Christianity and Suffering: African Perspectives, ed. Rodney L. Reed, ASET Series (Carlisle, Cumbria: Langham Global Library, 2017), 230–231.
[2] Old Testament Survey: An Independent-Study Textbook (Springfield, MO: Global University, 2010), 125.
[3] Sam Storms, Biblical Studies: Job (Edmond, OK: Sam Storms, 2016). [See here, here, here.]
[4] Luiz Alexandre Solano Rossi, Jesus Goes to McDonald’s: Theology and Consumer Society (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2011), 20–21.