Are you “able to comfort those who are in any trouble”? You can if you share the comfort of God (2 Cor 1:4).
The taciturn man thinks you shouldn’t speak unless you can improve on silence. Job’s friends thought otherwise. Who were these men? James Gunn helpfully writes, “Eliphaz was a philosopher; Bildad a theologian; and Zophar a moralist. Eliphaz was a man of reason; Bildad the man of tradition; and Zophar the man of ethics. Eliphaz spoke first (he may have been the eldest), and appears as the sage of knowledge. Bildad…appears as the seer of religion. Zophar, who speaks last and says least, is the scolder of low morality.” Now although these three vary widely in viewpoint, they all begin with the same bottom line—Job is suffering because of his sins. Eliphaz asks with bite, “Remember now, who ever perished being innocent?” (Job 4:7). Nevertheless Eliphaz becomes the most courteous of the three, and his advice seems to gain altitude the farther we go. Bildad inquires: “Does God subvert judgment? Or does the Almighty pervert justice?” (8:3). His false assumption was that God is good to us because we are good. If He is not good to us, it follows that we are not good. But God is good because He is good—all the time—even when He appears not to be, as Job would find out. And Zophar? You can hardly believe what he says: “Know therefore that God exacts from you less than your iniquity deserves” (11:6). Imagine! All he’d been through, and Zophar thought he got off lightly! As we plod through these oceans of words, looking for spoonsful of truth, we may conclude, “With friends like these, who needs enemies.” But even if it isn’t the critic’s intention to lift us up, anything that humbles us can do that very thing. “Before destruction the heart of a man is haughty, and before honor is humility” (Prov 18:12).