Times of testing test friendships, too. “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Prov 17:17).
Bad news travels fast. “Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this adversity that had come upon him, each one came from his own place—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite” (Job 2:11). With the large number of camels that Job once owned, he might have been in the caravan trade, especially along the King’s Highway that traveled from Africa and Arabia through Edom into Syria. Perhaps Teman in northern Edom, named after one of its dukes (Ezek 25:13), Shuah, sharing its name with one of Abraham’s sons of Keturah (Gen 25:2), and Naamah (Gen 4:22) were near this trade route. It seems the friends’ intentions were above reproach: “For they had made an appointment together to come and mourn with him, and to comfort him” (Job 2:11). They wanted to be with their friend in his time of need, something his kinfolk and local acquaintances did not (42:11). The three came to “mourn with him.” The word pictures a head shaking in grief, and is often translated “bemoan.” Their other desire, “to comfort him,” properly, “a sigh,” speaks of being moved with pity, desiring to console. As they approached their friend in the ash heap, covered in sores, they couldn’t believe their eyes. Was this really Job, “the greatest of all the people of the East” (Job 1:3)? They “did not recognize him, they lifted their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe and sprinkled dust on his head toward heaven” (2:12). Whatever else we learn of these three, at least they showed up, they kept a silent vigil for seven days (some think the best thing they said was nothing), and when they did speak, they talked with Job rather than about him. In this, they show us what friends in adversity ought to do.