02_Burnight-co_347_370 28/10/14 10:35 Pagina 368 368 JOHN BURNIGHT Newsom, for example, notes that the destructive wind in 4,9 recalls the “great wind” that crushed Job’s children (1,19), while Terrien, among others, suggests that the reference to the “whelps being scat- tered” in 4,11 may also be a subtle reference to their fate 58. If, however, the earlier verses in this chapter are sharply critical of Job (as I have argued above), then Eliphaz’s supposed insensi- tivity and otherwise peculiar emphasis on the fate of the wicked is understandable: he considers Job to be among them. Some of the terminology in 4,9-11 seems, like much of that in 4,1-8, deliberately targeted at elements of Job’s complaint in 3,20-26. The use of hgav in 4,10a, for example, creates a distant repetitive parallelism with 3,24, in which Job states that his “roars pour out like water” 59. The reference to the lion having its “teeth shattered” and “perishing from a lack of prey (@rj)” also creates a distant semantic parallelism with 3,24, where Job states that his “sighs come in place of his food (~xl)”. By utilizing imagery that evokes Job’s suffering in his de- scription of the fate of the wicked, Eliphaz is implying that his mis- fortune is indeed due to his — and his family’s — own wickedness. X. Conclusion: Eliphaz’s words in 4,2-11 as a “response” to Job’s complaint I propose that the first section of Eliphaz’s speech (4,2-11) serves as a poetic “response” to Job’s complaint in 3,20-26: Eliphaz recognizes Job’s tacit accusations against God and defends the tra- ditional Israelite theology of retribution by asserting that God has inflicted Job’s suffering with cause. In doing so he makes frequent use of language and imagery that evoke the earlier descriptions of Job’s plight. The reference to “exhaustion” in 4,2, for example, re- calls Job’s complaint that he is unable to find “rest” in 3,26. In 4,3- 5 Eliphaz uses imagery that elsewhere in the Bible is used to describe the “fear” of those experiencing divine punishment, evok- ing the “fear” imagery in 3,25 (and so implying that Job’s wicked- ness has caused “what he feared” to occur). Job 4,6 continues this theme, denouncing not only Job’s “fear” but also his “hope” (i.e. 58 NEWSOM, “Job”, 377; TERRIEN, “Job”, 938. Also see SEOW, Job 1–21, 386. 59 These are, in fact, the only two instances of hgav in Job (though the verb gavy occurs in Job 37,4).