Job's comforters

Cultural  

1. Three friends of Job who visited him in his affliction and offered him a way of making sense of his troubles: namely, that he was getting what he deserved. Job's friends maintained that misfortunes were sent by God as punishments for sin, and thus despite Job's apparent goodness, he must really be a terrible sinner. Job persistently disputed them, saying that God is supreme and mysterious — that God can send misfortunes to both good and wicked people and may not be second-guessed.

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A “Job's comforter” is someone who apparently offers consolation to another person but actually makes the other person feel worse.

Example Sentences

They are, of course, the modem equivalents of Job's comforters and plagues.

From Time Magazine Archive

But although the gloomy prognostications of his Job’s comforters failed in the least to depress his spirits, one very small cloud hovered occasionally on the horizon.

From The Master of the Shell by Reed, Talbot Baines

There are Job's comforters on board, who assure us that they have been thirty-six days between New York and la "joya mas preciosa de la corona de Espana."

From Life in Mexico by Calderón de la Barca, Madame (Frances Erskine Inglis)

"Well," sighed Bel, who at times was one of Job's comforters, "I've heard he has never been the same since."

From From Jest to Earnest by Roe, Edward Payson

Forgive me, Ida, I will try to do better by you though I fear I shall prove one of Job's comforters.

From A Face Illumined by Roe, Edward Payson