Job 42:7

the thing which is right The Lord blames the three friends for not speaking that which was right concerning Him, not concerning Job; He also commends Job for speaking what was right concerning Him. It is obvious that the three friends spoke many just and profound things concerning God, and that Job on the other hand said many things that were both blameworthy and false, things for which he was both rebuked by the Almighty, and expressed his penitence. The reference cannot be to such things as these. Neither can the charge made against the friends here be merely that brought against them by Job, that they did not speak in honesty and sincerity (ch. Job 6:25; Job 13:7), though this may be included. Rather, the friends are blamed for speaking in regard to God that which was not right, or true, in itself; and the reference must be to the theories they put forth in regard to God's providence and the meaning of afflictions. On this point the friends spoke in regard to God what was not right, while Job spoke that which was right (ch. Job 21:23-24). The Author puts the Divine imprimaturon his own theory of the meaning of suffering, or at least on Job's attacks on the theories advocated by the three friends.

The three friends "had really inculpated the providence of God by their professed defence of it. By disingenuously covering up and ignoring its enigmas and seeming contradictions, they had cast more discredit upon it than Job by honestly holding them up to the light. Their denial of its apparent inequalities was more untrue and more dishonouring to the divine administration, as it is in fact conducted, than Job's bold affirmation of them. Even his most startling utterances wrung from him in his bewilderment and sore perplexity were less reprehensible than their false statements and false inferences" (Green, Book of Job, p. 219).