Job's Three Friends Come to Condole with him. The friends are Eastern princes like himself (LXX kings), hence live at a distance. They knew him not, because he was so disfigured. They threw dust upon their heads, symbolising that Job s fortune and they themselves along with it are ruined by heaven-sent calamities, as a fertile land might be by dust-showers. They are so overwhelmed, that they sit seven days and seven nights, mourning for Job as if he were dead. Seven days are the days of mourning for the dead (Sir_22:12). Thus we come to the end of the prologue, between which and the epilogue (Job 42:7-17) in the old Volksbuch must have been an account of the debate between Job and his friends, very different from the poem which we now possess. The friends evidently tried to comfort him, but what they said, we can now only infer. They certainly did not speak to him like his wife, but yet they spoke so wrongly of God, that He would have taken vengeance on them, had it not been for Job's intercession (Job 42:7).
Related Commentaries of Job 2:11
Job 2:11-13
11 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.
12 And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.
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.