teacher–pupil relationship is at all apt for the Book of Job, and the legal framework for the divine speeches seems much more appropriate. The function of the speech is, in the first place, for Yahweh to accede to Job’s demand for a response. In the second place, it appears, from the content of the speech, that Yahweh is refusing to accept Job’s agenda, and is redefining the issue between them as that of the “plan” or “design” of the universe (38:2) rather than that of the justice or otherwise of