Albert Barnes Commentary Job 2:13

"So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great." — Job 2:13 (ASV)

So they sat down with him on the ground—see Job 1:20, note; Job 2:8, note; compare Ezra 9:3, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head, and my beard, and sat down astonished.

Seven days and seven nights—Seven days was the usual time of mourning among people in the East. Thus, they made public lamentation for Jacob seven days (Genesis 50:10). Thus, on the death of Saul, they fasted seven days (1 Samuel 31:13). So the author of the book of Ecclesiasticus says, “Seven days do men mourn for him that is dead” . It cannot be supposed that they remained in the same place and posture for seven days and nights, but that they mourned with him during that time in the usual way. An instance of grief remarkably similar to this, continuing through a period of six days, is ascribed by Euripides to Orestes:

Ἐντεῦθεν ἀγρίᾳ ξυντακεὶς νόσῳ νοσεῖ
Τλήμων Ὀρέστης; ο δὲ πεσὼν ἐν δεμνίοις
Κεῖται.
Ἓκτου δὲ δὴ τόδ ἦμαρ, κ. τ. λ.

Enteuthen agriacuntakeis nosō nosei
Tlēmōn Orestēs; ho de pesōn en demniois
Keitai.
Hekton de dē tod́ ēmar, etc.

“’Tis hence Orestes, agonized with griefs
And sore disease, lies on his restless bed
Delirious.
Now six morns have winged their flight,
Since by his hands his parent massacred
Burnt on the pile in expiatory flames.
Stubborn the while he keeps a rigid fast,
Nor bathes, nor dresses; but beneath his robes
He skulks, and if he steals a pause from rage,
’Tis but to feel his weight of woe and weep.”

And none spoke a word to him—That is, on the subject of his grief. They came to condole with him, but they now had nothing to say. They saw that his affliction was much greater than they had anticipated.

For they saw that his grief was very great—This is given as a reason why they were silent. But how this produced silence, or why his great grief was a cause of their silence, is not intimated. Perhaps one or all of the following considerations may have led to it.

1. They were amazed at the extent of his sufferings. Amazement is often expressed by silence. We look on that which is out of the usual course of events without being able to express anything. We are struck dumb with wonder.

2. The effect of great calamity is often to prevent utterance. Nothing is more natural or common than profound silence when we go to the house of mourning. “It is the lesser cares only that speak; the greater ones find not language.” Curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.

3. They might not have known what to say. They had come to sympathize with him and to offer consolation. But their anticipated topics of consolation may have been seen to be inappropriate. The calamity was greater than they had before witnessed. The loss of property and children; the deep humiliation of a man who had been one of the most distinguished of the land; the severity of his bodily sufferings, and his changed and haggard appearance, constituted so great a calamity that the usual topics of conversation did not meet the case. What they had to say was the result of careful observation on the usual course of events, and it is by no means improbable that they had never before witnessed sorrows so keen, and that they now saw that their maxims would by no means furnish consolation for such a case.

4. They seem to have been very early thrown into doubt regarding the real character of Job. They had regarded him as a pious man and had come to him under that impression. But his great afflictions seem soon to have shaken their confidence in his piety and to have led them to ask themselves whether so great a sufferer could be the friend of God. Their subsequent reasonings show that it was with them a settled opinion that the righteous would be prospered and that very great calamities were proof of great criminality in the sight of God. It was not inconsistent with this belief to suppose that the righteous might be slightly afflicted, but when they saw such sorrows, they supposed they were altogether beyond what God could send upon His friends. And with this doubt on their minds, and this change in their views, they knew not what to say. How could they console him when it was their settled belief that great sufferings were proof of great guilt? They could say nothing which would not seem to be a departure from this, unless they assumed that he had been a hypocrite and should administer reproof and rebuke for his sins.

5. In this state of things, to administer rebuke would seem to be cruel. It would aggravate the sorrows which already were more than he could bear. They did, therefore, what the friends of the afflicted are often compelled to do in regard to specific sufferings: they kept silence. As they could not comfort him, they would not aggravate his grief. All they could have said would probably have been unmeaning generalities which would not meet his case, or would have been sententious maxims which would imply that he was a sinner and a hypocrite; and they were therefore dumb, until the bitter complaint of Job himself (Job 3) gave them an opportunity to state the train of thought which had passed through their minds during this protracted silence. How often do similar cases occur now—cases where consolation seems almost impossible, and where any truths which might be urged, except the most abstract and unmeaning generalities, would tend only to aggravate the sorrows of the afflicted!

When calamity comes on a person as the result of his sins; when property is taken away which has been gained in an unlawful manner; when a friend dies, leaving no evidence that he was prepared; when it is impossible to speak of that friend without recalling the memory of his irreligious, prayerless, or dissolute life, how difficult it is to administer consolation! How often is the Christian friend constrained to close his lips in silence, or utter only torturing general truths that can give no consolation, or refer to facts which will tend only to open the wound in the heart deeper!

To be silent at such times is all that can be done, or to commend the sufferer in humble prayer to God—an expedient which seems not to have been resorted to by either Job or his friends. It is remarkable that Job is not represented as calling on God for support, and it is as remarkable that his friends during these seven days of silent grief did not commend the case of their much-afflicted friend to the Father of mercies. Had Job prayed, he might have been kept from much of the improper feeling to which he gave vent in the following chapter; had they prayed, they might have obtained much more just views of the government of God than they had until then possessed.