11 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. 12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. 13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. (Job 2:11-13)
A plethora of church-centric interpretations of Job’s three friends assert that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were model comforters until they opened their mouths.
Preachers and bible study leaders will typically say: “Oh look how they sat with him, they wept with him, and they practiced a ministry of presence with their friend Job in his suffering” (see Job 2:11-13).
This interpretation makes for a great teaching moment. The bible study leader can say, “You know, the best comfort we can often give a suffering person is to say nothing – but simply weep with those who weep and give the grieving person a ministry of your presence. Just be with the person.” All of that is very true! A ministry of presence and weeping with those who weep during times of loss, grief, and suffering is a wonderful posture for coming alongside a hurting soul.
Yet, the question is: does this application actually come from the text in Job 2?
Consider that putting dust or ashes upon one’s head in the Ancient Near East was a well-attested mourning ritual for the dead:
When 36 Israelites were killed in battle, Joshua and the elders of Israel put dust on their heads (Joshua 7:6)
When 300,00 soldiers were killed and the ark of the covenant was captured, a Benjamite came to tell Eli the priest this news – alongside the news that his sons Hophni and Phineas were dead – with dust on his head (1 Sam 4:12).
See also 2 Samuel 3:19; 15:32; Ezek 27:30; Lam. 2:10; Daniel 9:3.
Consider also that in the Ancient Near East, the typical prescribed period of time for mourning was 7 days.
So the question becomes: when the three friends put dust on their heads (Job 2:12) and sit in silence for 7 days and 7 nights (Job 2:13), is that a comforting act of therapeutic solidarity with Job or is a premature death ritual being enacted even though Job is still alive?
Old Testament scholar Robert Gordis says it plainly: “Putting dust on one’s head is the act of the mourner, and not of his comforters”.
David J.A. Clines writes: “Everything in their actions treats him as one already dead…It is hard to avoid the impression that such a way of showing grief would be experienced as alienating. For he is not yet dead; and although, when he opens his mouth, he will say that to be dead is his dearest desire, there must be for him a particular poignancy in seeing that fate externalized in the ritual behavior of his acquaintances.”
Job is treated as dead by his friends – while still living! Is this comforting to Job or do their actions only serve to further drive Job down the path into hopelessness and protest?
Consider further that the cast of characters in the book of Job is a portrait of simplistic extremes, almost caricatures of an epic authorial style. Job is “blameless” and the “greatest of all the peoples of the east”. Job is fantastically wealthy, and his wife gives over-the-top zealous counsel to “curse God and die”. Does the dramatic arc of the entire narrative now drive the reader (in Job 2:11-13) to pause this rather straightforward style and toggle rather cautiously between interpreting Job’s friends as comforting and sympathetic (heroes in Job 2:11-13) and then cruel and obnoxious (enemies beginning in Job 4)?
Or, does the entire narrative framework paint the friends in an entirely negative light from beginning to end? That is, does the sympathetic interpretation of Job’s friends in Job 2:11-13 import a modern psychological/therapeutic reading of the text (mainly for applicational benefit) while overlooking the rather obvious cultural background of the mourning ritual that might be construed as deeply alienating by Job?[1] Especially considering that Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar are experienced by Job as deeply alienating and cruel for the rest of the book, it is probably not a far-fetched interpretation to suggest that this same alienation and cruelty may have begun already in their initial encounter in Job 2:11-13 however noble their original intentions may have been when they initially began their travels.
Considering the excesses of our modern therapeutic (church) culture, we should at least be aware of psychologizing texts of scripture for reasons of application.
Exegesis is hard work. Sometimes tentative, open-ended interpretations serve to remind us of our epistemological humility before the Word of God.
And, after Job experiences God in the whirlwind, I bet that Job himself would at least agree with that.
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[1] Since Job’s children are not mentioned in the immediate context of Job 2 – or hardly the rest of the book – it seems unlikely that the friends are mourning his children but are rather responding to Job’s destitute condition (…they did not recognize him).
