Job’s Suffering: Why?

The major part of the book of Job records the back and forth debate Job has with his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, concerning the reason behind his suffering. None of them were aware of the conversations between God and Satan, in heaven, that led to the testing of Job. They were trying to answer the WHY question with incomplete information. Their interchange runs through three full cycles, with a young man named Elihu appearing at the end to weigh in with his point of view. The interchange between the three friends heats up as it progresses from discussion to debate to dispute.