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.
Eliphaz. The view of Rawlinson, that the names of Job's three friends represent the Chaldean times, about 700 BC, cannot be accepted. Eliphaz is an Idumean name, Esau's oldest son (Genesis 36:4); and Teman, son of Eliphaz
(15), called "duke." Eusebius places Teman in Arabia Petrea (but see on Job 6:19). Teman means at the right hand; and then the south, namely, part of Idumea; capital of Edom (Amos 1:12.) Hebrew geographers faced the east, not the north, as we do; hence, with them the right hand was the south. Temanites were famed for wisdom (Jeremiah 49:7). Baruch mentions them as 'authors of fables, namely, proverbs embodying the results of observation, and searchers out of understanding.'
Bildad the Shuhite - from the Hebrew х shuwach (H7743)], a pit: or else Shuah (H7744), son of Abraham and Keturah (Genesis 25:2). Ptolemy (Job 2:15) mentions the region Syccea (Greek: Sakkaia, in Arabia Deserta, east of Batanea: perhaps the same as the country of the Shuhites (Gesenius).
Zophar the Naamathite - not of the Naamans in Judah (Joshua 15:41), which was too distant; but some region in Arabia Deserta. Fretelius says there was a Naamath in Uz.