Job 6 · a question people ask
Is the book saying Job's friends were false friends?
In this chapter the words are Job's, not the book's. "My brothers have dealt deceitfully as a brook" (6:15), and "For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid" (6:21), are his words. The book's own voice said the friends came "to sympathize with him and to comfort him" (2:11), and "they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights" (2:13). At the end the LORD says to Eliphaz, "My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has" (42:7), and "my servant Job shall pray for you" (42:8). The book doesn't say which of the friends' words 42:7 has in view. This study keeps Job's words as Job's.
The verses
“My brothers have dealt deceitfully as a brook, as the channel of brooks that pass away;”
“For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid.”
“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him.”
“So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.”