When Job’s friends came to visit him they did so with every intention of comforting him in his distress. They sat on the refuse heap with him, and by their presence tried to empathize with him in his grief (cf. Ezekiel 3:15–16). After they had been with him for an entire week, Job broke the silence. He lamented the fact that he was suffering mentally and emotionally as well as spiritually and physically. He was baffled because he had been neither complacent nor