The phrase Job’s comforter designates a person who aggravates distress under the guise of administering comfort.
This phrase occurs, for example, in a review of Nip/Tuck, a U.S. television drama series about Christian and Sean, two partners in a cosmetic-surgery practice—review by James Saynor, published in The Sunday Telegraph (London, England) of Sunday 15th August 2004 [No. 2,253; Review section: page 11, column 2]—the following is about Sean:
Relations with his wife (Joely Richardson) are meanwhile going south with the inexorableness of spaghetti sliding off a wall. He can’t even say something nice about the shape of her breasts without sounding like a Job’s comforter: “For your age, gravitationally, they’re exactly where they should be.”
In the phrase Job’s comforter, Job is the name of a patriarch of the land of Uz, the eponymous protagonist of a book of the Old Testament, taken (in particular) as the type of extreme poverty, destitution, etc.
—Cf. also the humorous phrases (as) poor as Job’s turkey and (as) poor as Job’s cat.
The phrase Job’s comforter alludes to Job’s reply to his friends in the Book of Job, 16:2—which is as follows in the King James Bible (1611):
I haue heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.
—Context: Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, came to comfort him, but only added to his sense of despair by telling him that his misfortunes were the result of his sinfulness.
The phrase Job’s comforter was originally used in similes. The earliest occurrence that I have found is from The Good Man’s Peace, a sermon dated Stepney, 16th April 1648, in A Lifting up for the Down-cast [page 4], published in the second volume of Twenty one several books of Mr William Bridge; Somtime Fellow of Emmanuel Colledg in Cambridg, and now Pastor of the Church of Christ in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. Collected into two Volums (London: Printed by Peter Cole, 1657), by William Bridge (1600?-1670):
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people saith the Lord. But there are divers comforters that are indeed like Jobs comforters, like Jobs friends, they speak hard words unto poor distressed souls.
The earliest occurrences of Job’s comforter used as a phrase that I have found are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From An Anagram and Elegy, on his dear deceased friend, John Vernon; who having served his Generation by the will of God, fell asleep the twenty ninth day of the third Moneth, vulg. called May, 1667., in A Looking-Glass for Children. Being a Narrative of God’s gracious Dealings with some Little Children; Recollected by Henry Jessey in his life-time. Together, with sundry seasonable Lessons and Instructions to Youth, calling them early to remember their Creator. Written by Abraham Chear, late of Plymouth. The Second Edition, Corrected and Amended. To which is added many other Poems very sutable. As also some Elegies on Departed Friends: made by the said Abraham Chear. All now faithfully gathered together, for the benefit of Young and Old: by H. P. (London: Printed for Robert Boulter, 1673) [page 97]:
Among the Flock of Slaughter, clad with dust,
Through sympathy in Spirit oft am I;
But with Job’s Comforters, sit mute I must,
Since grief amounts to such extremity.
His indignation, having sin’d, let’s bear,
Till in nue honor he our breach repair.
2-: From the review of A Treatise of Consolation to Parents for the Death of their Children; Written upon the Occasion of the Death of the Duke of Gloucester (London: Printed for T. Bennett, 1701), by William Nichols—review published in The History of the Works of the Learned. Or, An Impartial Account of Books Lately Printed in all Parts of Europe. With a Particular Relation of the State of Learning in each Country (London, England) of March 1701 [Vol. 3, No. 3, page 134]:
He who would Administer true Consolation to another, must be endued with a great deal of Prudence. He must consider the several Circumstances of the Sufferer; of what Nature his Misfortune is, how he takes it, what Arguments of Consolation are proper to be us’d, and how and when to apply them. These and several other things, according as the Occasion is, must be duly weighed, unless a Man would prove a Job’s Comforter to his Friend.
3-: From The London-Spy Compleat, in Eighteen-Parts (London: Printed and Sold by J. How, 1703), by Edward Ward (1667-1731) [page 45]:
Who should stagger into our Company, but an old Acquaintance of my Friends, who (as I understand his Talk) was an Exchange Commodity-Broker: A kind of Mungril Match-maker, between Cock Bawd, and Pimp; or rather a Composition of both. He made more a roaring than half a dozen of Drunken Porters, and was as full of Freaks as a Madman at the Full of the Moon. He Guzzl’d, and Rattl’d, Smoak’d, and Star’d like a Fury: And every time he spoke ’twas with so much Earnestness, that I thought his Eyes would have flown out of his Head in pursuit of his Words. All he talk’d was lowd Nonsense; and the heat of his Brain setting Fire to his Tongue, made every thing he said so wonderfully hot, it made the Ears of all People glow that heard ’em. At last he pluck’d out a Catalogue of what Fortunes he had at his disposal, viz.
A Mercers Daughter in Cornhil, about Seventeen, who was unluckily Kiss’d by her Fathers Prentice, which being spread among the Neighbourhood, he is willing to give her two hundred Pounds advance, above an Equality, to salve up the flaw, to any honest Young Shop-keeper, that will wink at a fault to better his Condition.
An old Maid that had Liv’d 30 Years in an Aldermans Family […].
A Young Buxom Widdow […].
About half a Hundred Exchange-Girles, some Tall, some Short, some Black, some Fair, some Handsome, some Housewifely, some Homely, some Vertuous, but all with White-Chappel Portions, and will make very good Wives for those who have more Mony than Wit and more Faith than Jealousie.
A Vintners Daughter bred at the Dancing School, becomes a Bar well, steps a Minuet finely, plays John come Kiss me now, now now, sweetly upon the Virginals, makes a very graceful Figure, and is as Proud, as she’s Handsome: Will have a great many Quart-Pots, old Pewter, Linnen, and other Houshold-stuff to her Portion; but whoever Marries her, must Ride her with a Curb, or she may prove unlucky to the Bane of her Rider.
When he had thns [sic] diverted us with his Catalogue of Job’s Comforters, which he pretended were upon Sale, and at his disposal, my Friend began to put me in mind of the considerable Business we had upon Change, at Gresham Colledge, Bedlam, and other places, on the morrow, which occasion’d us to think of Bed.
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