Job's friends were perfect until they started talking. Today Eliphaz opens his mouth with the theology that will torture Job for thirty chapters: suffering is always a payback, so check your receipts.

You will meet this theology again, at hospital bedsides and funerals, sometimes in your own head. Today you learn to recognize it early.

Eliphaz's system was tidy: good people prosper, sufferers had it coming. It let him explain Job's ashes without feeling their heat. Tidy theology usually works like that, protecting the comfortable from the discomfort of mystery. God will eventually say Eliphaz spoke wrongly about Him. Remember that verdict as the speeches pile up.

Job's raw words, meanwhile, get defended by the same God. My anguish outweighs the sand, he says, and heaven lets it stand. When you sit with sufferers, be slower than Eliphaz and safer than his system. Presence comforts. Explanations mostly perform.