“Troubles may be largely intended to prepare us for our work in helping others in trouble. The widow can sympathize with the widow; the poor show most kindness to the poor. The experience of the prostration of a great illness enables a person to understand and help sick people. Thus sorrow is a talent to be used for the good of others, by being invested in sympathy.”
Frederic William Farrar (1831-1903) in The Pulpit Commentary notes on Job 12:5, cf. Isaiah 53:3.