Job 2:11-13

Job's three friends, having heard of his misfortunes, come to condole with him

How long time intervened between Job's second affliction and the arrival of his friends cannot be accurately ascertained. From the allusions in chaps. 7, 19, and 30, it is probable that a considerable time elapsed. A man of Job's rank would not choose his friends from the men of inferior station around him; they would be, like himself, Eastern princes, all but his equals in rank and influence. Their abodes would therefore be distant from one another, and more distant from his, and travelling in the East is slow. The tone of Job's mind, too, as reflected in ch. 3, has undergone a change, the effect, no doubt, of protracted sufferings.

Eliphaz is an old Idumean name (Genesis 36:4), and Teman, the place of his abode, is frequently mentioned in connexion with Edom. The place was famed for the wisdom of its inhabitants (Amos 1:12; Obadiah 1:8; Jeremiah 49:7; Ezekiel 25:13). Shuah was a son of Abraham by Keturah. The descendants of this wife were sent by Abraham to the East (Genesis 25:2; Genesis 25:6). Bildad may be connected by the Author with this family. Naamah, the dwelling-place of Zophar, means, perhaps, pleasant abode (Beauséjour, Reuss). A place of this name is mentioned, Joshua 15:41, but this, being in Palestine, can hardly have been the home of Zophar. The place is doubtless supposed by the Writer to lie east of the Jordan.