Comfort to the soul

[Job 4:4] I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul's stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.
Your soul in my soul’s stead - in the same afflicted state and condition, in the same distressed case and circumstances; however it is right to put ourselves in the case of others in our own imagination, that so it may be considered in the proper point of view, that we may better judge how we should choose to be treated ourselves in such circumstances, and so teach us to do that to others as we would have done to ourselves. So strange, so sudden, frequently, are the vicissitudes of human affairs, and such the turns of the wheel, that the spokes soon change places. Whatever our brethren's sorrows are, we ought by sympathy to make them our own, because we know not how soon they may be so.
[5] But I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should asswage your grief.
Strengthen you - bitter irony, opposed to strengthening with the heart, that is, with real consolation. So one saint may strengthen and comfort another when in distress, whether of soul or body; see (Ps. 138:3) (Lk. 22:43,32); and thus Job had strengthened and comforted others, with his words in former times, as Eliphaz himself owns, (4:3,4) and so he would again, were there a change in his circumstances, and objects presented.
Moving of my lips - should be such as would have a tendency to calm grief, to stop, restrain, forbid, and lessen sorrow; at least that it might not break out in an wasteful way, and exceed bounds, and that his friends might not be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.Asswage your grief - what is the duty we owe to our brethren in their affliction?
1. We should say and do all we can to strengthen them, suggesting to them such considerations as are proper to encourage their confidence in G-d and to support their sinking spirits. Faith and patience are the strength of the afflicted; whatever helps these graces confirms the feeble knees.
2. To assuage their grief - the causes of their grief, if possible, or at least their resentment of those causes. Good words cost nothing; but they may be of good service to those that are in sorrow, not only as it is some comfort to them to see their friends concerned for them, but as they may be so reminded of that which, through the occurrence of grief, was forgotten. Though hard words we say break no bones, yet kind words may help to make broken bones rejoice; and those have the tongue of the learned that know how to speak a word in season to the weary.
Do our words comfort the soul or aggravate it? Sometimes people just need a lessoning ear and a hug or two.