Job 2:11

THE VISIT OF CONSOLATION, Job 2:11-13.

11. Three friends Their conduct, as seen in this verse, shows them to have been sincere in their friendship at first, however they may have failed and become subsequently involved in angry dispute and bitter recriminations.

Eliphaz the Temanite The word Eliphaz signifies “God the dispenser of riches.” (Furst,) or, according to J.D. Michaelis, “My God is gold.” Since an Eliphaz appears in Genesis 36:4; Genesis 36:11, as one of the sons of Esau, and the father of Teman, we are justified in supposing that the home of Eliphaz was in the Idumaean region bearing that name. ( 1Ch 1:43 ; 1 Chronicles 1:45.) Teman was probably the capital of Edom, (Amos 1:12) and lay, according to Eusebius, fifteen Roman miles from Petra, or, more probably, about five miles, as in Jerome. “This part of Arabia always had the most excellent philosophers.” Grotius. (See Jeremiah 49:7; Bar 3:22 .) The Septuagint calls Eliphaz the king of the Thaemans.

Bildad the Shuhite So called after a national deity of the Edomites, according to Furst, though Gesenius ( Thesaurus) renders the name, the Strenuous Defender. The Septuagint makes him the ruler of the Sanchaeans. Shuah was the youngest son of Keturah by Abraham, (Genesis 25:2,) who sent Shuah and the other children of the concubines “eastward into the east country.” The Shuhites probably dwelt not far from Edom, though Rawlinson conjectures that they may have been the Tsukhi, who dwelt on the northern confines of Babylon, both sides of the Euphrates. (Herodotus, i, p. 380.)

Zophar the Naamathite Zophar, the shaggy, the rough, (Furst.) The place of his residence is uncertain. It could not have been the Naamah spoken of in Joshua 15:41. The Septuagint calls him the king of the Minaeans. This leads Dillmann to suggest the identity of Naamah with Maan, an ancient city whose ruins still remain, somewhat to the east of Petra. (Comp. EWALD, Hist. of Israel, 1:239.)

An appointment together When a calamity befalls a family among the Arabs of the present day, all their relations, connexions, and friends immediately hasten together to console them. PIEROTTI. Customs, p. 240. To mourn with him נוד , noudh; English, nod, to shake ( the head.) Among highly excitable races deep grief is expressed by the movement of the head.