Eliphaz Expands a Traditional Portrait of the Wicked

Eliphaz offers what he has seen and what the fathers handed down

I will shew thee, hear me; and that which I have seen I will declare; which wise men have told from their fathers, and have not hid it: unto whom alone the earth was given, and no stranger passed among them.

The wicked person is then painted until the portrait can be hung on Job

The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor. A dreadful sound is in his ears: in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him. He believeth not that he shall return out of darkness, and he is waited for of the sword. He wandereth abroad for bread, saying, Where is it? he knoweth that the day of darkness is ready at his hand. Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle. For he stretcheth out his hand against God, and strengtheneth himself against the Almighty. He runneth upon him, even on his neck, upon the thick bosses of his bucklers: because he covereth his face with his fatness, and maketh collops of fat on his flanks. And he dwelleth in desolate cities, and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps.

He shall not be rich, neither shall his substance continue, neither shall he prolong the perfection thereof upon the earth. He shall not depart out of darkness; the flame shall dry up his branches, and by the breath of his mouth shall he go away. Let not him that is deceived trust in vanity: for vanity shall be his recompence. It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green. He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive. For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery. They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity, and their belly prepareth deceit.

The portrait is Eliphaz's attempt to fit Job into a type. It is not narrator confirmation that Job's suffering reveals violence, bribery, or secret guilt. A traditional wicked-man speech aimed at a blameless friend is still a false identification.