Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 24:1
Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days?
1. This verse reads,
Why are not times appointed by the Almighty?
And why do they that know him not see his days?
By “times” and “days” Job means diets of assize for sitting in judgment and dispensing right among men. The speaker complains that such times and days are not appointed by the ruler and judge of the world; He fails to exercise a righteous rule; they that know Him (the godly) and look for the manifestation of His righteousness are disappointed. The A. V. why, seeing times are not hidden, &c., appears to mean, Why, seeing God has appointed judgment-days known to Himself, are the godly not permitted to perceive them? The complaint in this case does not touch the Divine rectitude itself, but only laments that it does not manifest itself to men. But the distinction is one not drawn by Job. When he complains that God does not make visible His righteous rule, his meaning is that God does not exercise such a rule. This is the thought about God that alarms him, and makes his heart soft (ch. Job 22:16).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Why, seeing times are not hidden froth the Almighty – Dr. Good renders this,
Wherefore are not doomdays kept by the Almighty.
So that his offenders may eye his periods?
Dr. Noyes:
Why are not times of punishment reserved by the Almighty.
And why do not they, who regard him, see his judgments?
Jerome, Times are not hidden from the Almighty; but they who know him are ignorant of his days. The Septuagint, But why have set times – horai, escaped the notice – elathon – of the Almighty, and the wicked transgressed all bounds? The word ethym, here translated times, is rendered by the Chaldee (), set times, times appointed for an assembly or a trial, beforehand designated for any purpose. The Hebrew word properly means, set time, fit and proper times; and in the plural, as used here, means seasons, Est 1:13; 1Ch 12:32; and then vicissitudes of things, fortunes, destinies; Psa 31:16; 1Ch 29:30. Here it means, probably, the vicissitudes of things, or what actually occurs. All changes are known to God. He sees good and bad times; he sees the changes that take place among people. And since he sees all this, Job asks, with concern, Why is it that God does not come forth to deal with people according to their true character? That this was the fact, he proceeds to show further in illustration of the position which he had maintained in Job 21 by specifying a number of additional cases where the wicked undeniably prospered. It was this which perplexed him so much, for he did not doubt that their conduct was clearly known to God. If their conduct had been unknown to God, it would not have been a matter of surprise that they should go unpunished. But since all their ways were clearly seen by him, it might well excite inquiry why they were permitted thus to prosper. He believed that they were reserved to a future day of wrath, Job 21:30; Job 24:23-24. They would be punished in due time, but it was not a fact as his friends alleged, that they were punished in this life according to their deeds.
Do they that know him? – His true friends; the pious.
Not see his days – The days of his wrath, or the day when he punishes the wicked. Why are they not permitted to see him come forth to take vengeance on his foes? The phrase his days means the days when God would come forth to punish his enemies. They are called his days, because at that time God would be the prominent object that would excite attention. They would be days when he would manifest himself in a manner so remarkable as to characterize the period. Thus, the day of judgment is called the day of the Son of Man, or his day Luk 17:24, because at that time the Lord Jesus will be the prominent and glorious object that shall give character to the day. The question here seems to have been asked by Job mainly to call attention to the fact which he proceeds to illustrate. The fact was undeniable. Job did not maintain, as Eliphaz had charged on him Job 22:12-14, that the reason why God did not punish them was, that he could not see their deeds. He admitted most fully that God did see them, and understood all that they did. In this they were agreed. Since this was so, the question was why the wicked were spared, and lived in prosperity. The fact that it was so, Job affirms. The reason why it was so, was the subject of inquiry now. This was perplexing, and Job could solve it only by referring to what was to come hereafter.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 24:1-25
Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty.
Great crimes not always followed by great punishment in this life
I. Great crimes have prevailed on the earth from the earliest times. Amongst the crimes specified in this chapter there is–
1. Theft. There were those who stole from others their lands and flocks, and robbed the widow and orphan of their food and clothing (Job 24:2-8). There is–
2. Cruelty. They plucked the fatherless from the breast, made men groan out of the city. There is–
3. Murder. The murderer, rising with the light, killeth the poor and needy. There is–
4. Adultery. The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, etc.
The fact that these crimes prevailed in Jobs land and times implies–
1. That in those distant scenes and times the same standard of morals existed that we have. They esteemed theft, cruelty, murder, and adultery wrong; so do we.
2. That in those distant scenes and times men had the same sinful propensities as they have now.
II. That although the great God is cognisant of those crimes He does not always visit them with punishment in this life. Job begins with the question, Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know Him not see His days? The meaning is, Why, since crimes are not hidden from the Almighty, do not His friends see His judgments? He shows that these great criminals fare as well here, both in life and death, as others. Why is this? Not because the Almighty is ignorant of their crimes, or because their crimes are not abhorrent to His nature. Whatever the cause, the fact is undeniable; and this fact Job brings out here to refute the doctrine of his friends, namely, that great suffering implies great crime. (Homilist.)
Consideration for others
I would rather be a year or two longer in effecting my purposes than reach them by trampling on mens hearts and hearths. (J. Ruskin.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XXIV
Job asserts that there are various transgressors whose
wickedness is not visited on them in this life; and
particularizes the adjust and oppressive, 1-6;
those who are cruel to the poor, 7-13;
the murderer, 14;
the adulterer, 15;
thieves and plunderers, 16, 17.
Nevertheless they have an accursed portion, and shall die, and
their memory perish, 18-20.
He speaks of the abuse of power, and of the punishment of
oppressors, 21-24;
and asserts that what he has said on these subjects cannot be
contradicted, 25.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXIV
Verse 1. Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty] Mr. Good translates: “Wherefore are not doomsdays kept by the Almighty, so that his offenders may eye their periods?” Doomsdays are here used in the same sense as term times; and the wish is, that God would appoint such times that the falsely accused might look forward to them with comfort; knowing that, on their arrival, they should have a fair hearing, and their innocence be publicly declared; and their detractors, and the unjust in general, meet with their deserts. But God reserves the knowledge of these things to himself. “The holy patriarch,” says Mr. Good, “has uniformly admitted that in the aggregate scale of Providence the just are rewarded and the wicked punished for their respective deeds, in some period or other of their lives. But he has contended in various places, and especially in Job 21:7-13, that the exceptions to this general rule are numerous: so numerous, as to be sufficient to render the whole scheme of providential interposition perfectly mysterious and incomprehensible, Job 23:8-12; so in the passage before us: if the retribution ye speak of be universal, and which I am ready to admit to a certain extent to be true and unquestionable, I not only ask, Why do the just ever suffer in the midst of their righteousness? but, Why do not the wicked see such retribution displayed before their eyes by stated judgments, so that they may at one and the same time know and tremble?”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The sense of the words according to this translation is this,
Why, ( how comes it to pass,)
seeing times (i.e. the several times of every mans life, how long he shall live, or the fittest seasons and opportunities (which are oft called times, as Gen 24:11; Psa 31:15; 119:126; Act 1:6,7) for every action, and particularly for the punishment of wicked men, about which the present controversy was)
are not hidden from or unknown to the almighty God, ( i.e. seeing all times, and men that live, and things that are done, or to be done, in their tines and seasons, are exactly known to God,)
do they that know him (i.e. who love and obey him, as that word is oft used, as, Psa 9:10; 36:10; 91:14, or they who observe and regard his ways and works done in the world)
not see (whence is it that they cannot discern)
his (i.e. Gods)
days, i.e. his times and seasons which he takes for the punishment of ungodly men? which if they were constant and fixed in this life, as you pretend they are, they would not be unknown to good men, to whom God useth to reveal his secrets, and they could not be unobserved by so many good men, who make it their business to mind and study the works of God, and especially the course and methods of his providence towards good and bad men. The times or days of Gods executing judgments upon sinners are frequently called the days of the Lord, as Isa 2:12; 13:6; Jer 46:10; compare Job 20:28; Pro 6:34; Act 2:20; as the time of mans judging is called mans day, 1Co 4:3. But this verse is in part, and may very agreeably to the Hebrew text be rendered and interpreted thus, Why or how are not times (i.e. the times and seasons appointed for the punishment of evil-doers, about which the dispute was) hidden or reserved by or with God, (i.e. kept as a secret in his own breast, and concealed from the knowledge of mankind. How can you say or think with any colour that these times are fixed and manifest to all men, and that sinners are constantly punished in this life, and that so notoriously that all good men see it, as was said, Job 22:15-19) seeing (as the particle you is rendered, Job 19:28; or for, as it is frequently used) they that know him (that give themselves to understand and consider his doings in the world, who of all men are most likely to know this, if it were true and certain) do not see his days, to wit, of punishing the wicked in this life? as was said before. And this he mentions as a fit preface to usher in the following discourse concerning the manifold wickedness of men, and withal their present impunity.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. Why is it that, seeing thatthe times of punishment (Eze 30:3;”time” in the same sense) are not hidden from the Almighty,they who know Him (His true worshippers, Job18:21) do not see His days (of vengeance; Joe 1:15;2Pe 3:10)? Or, with UMBREITless simply, making the parallel clauses more nicely balanced, Whyare not times of punishment hoarded up (“laid up”; Job21:19; appointed) by the Almighty? that is, Why are theynot so appointed as that man may now see them? as the second clauseshows. Job does not doubt that they are appointed: nay, he asserts it(Job 21:30); what he wishes isthat God would let all now see that it is so.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty,…. Which seems to be an inference deduced from what he had said in Job 23:14; that since all things are appointed by God, and his appointments are punctually performed by him, the times of his carrying his purposes and decrees into execution cannot be hidden from him; for, as he has determined what shall be done, he has determined the time before appointed for the doing of them; as there is a purpose for everything under the heavens, there is a time set for the execution of that purpose, which must be known unto God that has fixed it; for as all his works are known to him from the beginning, or from eternity, the times when those works should be wrought must also be known to him. The Vulgate Latin, version reduces the words to a categorical proposition, “times are not hidden from the Almighty”; either temporal things, as Sephorno interprets it, things done in time, or the times of doing those things; no sort of time is hid from God; time respecting the world in general, its beginning, duration, and end; all seasons in it, day and night, summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, which are all fixed and settled by him; the several distinct ages and periods of time, into which it has been divided; the old and new world, the legal and Gospel dispensation, the various generations in it; the four great monarchies of the world, their rise, and duration, and end, with all other lesser kingdoms and states; time respecting the inhabitants of the world, their coming into and passing out of it in successive generations, the time of their birth, and of their death, and of adversity and prosperity, which interchangeably take place during their abode in it; and particularly the people of God, the time of their redemption by Christ, of their conversion by the grace of God, and all their times of darkness, desertion, temptation, and afflictions, and of peace, joy, and comfort; time, past and future, respecting the church of God, and the state of it, and all things relative thereunto; and the times of Israel’s affliction in a land not theirs, four hundred years, and of their seventy years’ captivity in Babylon, were not hidden from the Almighty, but foretold by him; the suffering times of the church under the New Testament; the ten persecutions of it by the Roman emperors; the flight and nourishment of it in the wilderness for a time, and times, and half a time; the treading down of the holy city forty two months; the witnesses prophesying: in sackcloth 1260 days; the killing of them, and their bodies lying unburied three days and a half, and then rising; the reign of antichrist forty two months, at the end of which antichristian time will be no more; the time of Christ’s coming to judgment, which is a day appointed, though unknown to men and angels, and the reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years; all these times are not hidden from, but known to the Almighty, even all time, past, present, and to come, and all things that have been, are, or shall be done therein. Several Jewish commentators c interpret these words as an expostulation or wish, “why are not times hidden?” c. if they were, I should not wonder at it that those that knew him do not know what shall be but he knows the times and days in which wicked men will do wickedness, why is he silent? Mr. Broughton, and others d, render them, “why are not”, or “why should not times be hidden by the Almighty?” that is, be hidden in his own breast from men, as they are; for the times and seasons it is not for man to know, which God has put in his own power, Ac 1:6; as the times of future troubles, of a man’s death, and the day of judgment; it is but right and fit, on many accounts, that they should be hid by him from them; but others of later date translate the words perhaps much better, “why are not [certain stated] times laid up”, or “reserved by the Almighty” e? that is, for punishing wicked men in this, life, as would be the case, Job suggests, if it was true what his friends had asserted, that wicked men are always punished here: and then upon this another question follows, why
do they that know him not see his days? that know him not merely by the light of nature, but as revealed in Christ; and that have not a mere knowledge of him, but a spiritual and experimental one; who know him so as to love him, believe in him, fear, serve, and worship him; and who have a greater knowledge of him than others may have, and have an intimate acquaintance and familiarity with him, are his bosom friends; and if there are fixed times for punishing the wicked in this life, how comes it to pass that these friends of God, to whom he reveals his secrets, cannot see and observe any such days and times of his as these? but, on the contrary, observe, even to the stumbling of the greatest saints, that the wicked prosper and increase in riches. Job seems to refer to what Eliphaz had said, Job 22:19; which he here tacitly denies, and proves the contrary by various instances, as follows.
c Aben Ezra, Nachmanides, Simeon Bar Tzemach. d “quinam ab omnipotente”, Beza so Junius & Tremellius. e “Quare ab omnipotente non sunt recondita in poenam stata tempora”, Schultens.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1 Wherefore are not bounds reserved by the Almighty,
And they who honour Him see not His days?
2 They remove the landmarks,
They steal flocks and shepherd them.
3 They carry away the ass of the orphan,
And distrain the ox of the widow.
4 They thrust the needy out of the way,
The poor of the land are obliged to slink away together.
The supposition that the text originally stood is natural; but it is at once destroyed by the fact that Job 24:1 becomes thereby disproportionately long, and yet cannot be divided into two lines of comparatively independent contents. In fact, is by no means absolutely necessary. The usage of the language assumes it, according to which followed by the genitive signifies the point of time at which any one’s fate is decided. Isa 13:22; Jer 27:7; Eze 22:3; Eze 30:3; the period when reckoning is made, or even the terminus ad quem , Ecc 9:12; and ywm followed by the gen. of a man, the day of his end, Job 15:32; Job 18:20; Eze 21:30, and freq.; or with , the day when God’s judgment is revealed, Joe 1:15, and freq. The boldness of poetic language goes beyond this usage, by using directly of the period of punishment, as is almost universally acknowledged since Schultens’ day, and dna ,y of God’s days of judgment or of vengeance;
(Note: On , in the sense of times of retribution, Wetzstein compares the Arab. idat , which signifies predetermined reward or punishment; moreover, is derived from (from ), and is equivalent to , according to the same law of assimilation, by which now-a-days they say instead of (one who is born on the same day with me, from Arab. lidat , lida ), and instead of (my drinking-time), since the assimilation of the takes place everywhere where is pronounced. The of the feminine termination in , as in and the like, perhaps also in ( battim ), is amalgamated with the root.)
and it is the less ambiguous, since , in the sense of the divine predetermination of what is future, Job 15:20, especially of God’s storing up merited punishment, Job 21:19, is an acknowledged word of our poet. On with the passive, vid., Ew. 295, c (where, however, Job 28:4 is erroneously cited in its favour); it is never more than equivalent to , for to use directly as with the passive is admissible neither in Hebrew nor in Arabic. ( Keri , for which the Targ. unsuitably reads ) are, as in Psa 36:11; Psa 87:4, comp. supra, Job 18:21, those who know God, not merely superficially, but from experience of His ways, consequently those who are in fellowship with Him. is to be written with Zinnorith over the , and Mercha by the first syllable of . The Zinnorith necessitates the retreat of the tone of to its first syllable, as in , Psa 18:8 (Br’s Pslaterium, p. xiii.); for if remained Milra, ought to be connected with it by Makkeph, and consequently remain toneless ( Psalter, ii. 507).
Next follows the description of the moral, abhorrence which, while the friends (Job 22:19) maintain a divine retribution everywhere manifest, is painfully conscious of the absence of any determination of the periods and days of judicial punishment. Fearlessly and unpunished, the oppression of the helpless and defenceless, though deserving of a curse, rages in every form. They remove the landmarks; comp. Deu 27:17, “Cursed is he who removeth his neighbour’s landmark” ( , here once written with , while otherwise from signifies assequi , on the other hand from signifies dimovere ). They steal flocks, , i.e., they are so barefaced, that after they have stolen them they pasture them openly. The ass of the orphans, the one that is their whole possession, and their only beast for labour, they carry away as prey ( , as e.g., Isa 20:4); they distrain, i.e., take away with them as a pledge (on , to bind by a pledge, obstringere , and also to take as a pledge, vid., on Job 22:6, and Khler on Zec 11:7), the yoke-ox of the widow (this is the exact meaning of , as of the Arab. thor ). They turn the needy aside from the way which they are going, so that they are obliged to wander hither and thither without home or right: the poor of the land are obliged to hide themselves altogether. The Hiph. , with as its obj., is used as in Amo 5:12; there it is used of turning away from a right that belongs to them, here of turning out of the way into trackless regions. (vid., on Job 29:16) here, as frequently, is the parallel word with , the humble one, the patient sufferer; instead of which the Keri is , the humbled, bowed down with suffering (vid., on Psa 9:13). without any Keri in Psa 76:10; Zep 2:3, and might less suitably appear here, where it is not so much the moral attribute as the outward condition that is intended to be described. The Pual describes that which they are forced to do.
The description of these unfortunate ones is now continued; and by a comparison with Job 30:1-8, it is probable that aborigines who are turned out of their original possessions and dwellings are intended (comp. Job 15:19, according to which the poet takes his stand in an age in which the original relations of the races had been already disturbed by the calamities of war and the incursions of aliens). If the central point of the narrative lies in Haurn, or, more exactly, in the Nukra, it is natural, with Wetzstein, to think of the Arab. ‘hl ‘l – wukr or rb ‘l – hujr , i.e., the (perhaps Ituraean) “races of the caves” in Trachonitis.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Outward Prosperity of the Wicked. | B. C. 1520. |
1 Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days? 2 Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof. 3 They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow’s ox for a pledge. 4 They turn the needy out of the way: the poor of the earth hide themselves together. 5 Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work; rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children. 6 They reap every one his corn in the field: and they gather the vintage of the wicked. 7 They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no covering in the cold. 8 They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter. 9 They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor. 10 They cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry; 11 Which make oil within their walls, and tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst. 12 Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out: yet God layeth not folly to them.
Job’s friends had been very positive in it that they should soon see the fall of wicked people, how much soever they might prosper for a while. By no means, says Job; though times are not hidden from the Almighty, yet those that know him do not presently see his day, v. 1. 1. He takes it for granted that times are not hidden from the Almighty; past times are not hidden from his judgment (Eccl. iii. 15), present times are not hidden from his providence (Matt. x. 29), future times are not hidden from his prescience, Acts xv. 18. God governs the world, and therefore we may be sure he takes cognizance of it. Bad times are not hidden from him, though the bad men that make the times bad say one to another, He has forsaken the earth,Psa 94:6; Psa 94:7. Every man’s times are in his hand, and under his eye, and therefore it is in his power to make the times of wicked men in this world miserable. He foresees the time of every man’s death, and therefore, if wicked men die before they are punished for their wickedness, we cannot say, “They escaped him by surprise;” he foresaw it, nay, he ordered it. Before Job will enquire into the reasons of the prosperity of wicked men he asserts God’s omniscience, as one prophet, in a similar case, asserts his righteousness (Jer. xii. 1), another his holiness (Hab. i. 13), another his goodness to his own people, Ps. lxxiii. 1. General truths must be held fast, though we may find it difficult to reconcile them to particular events. 2. He yet asserts that those who know him (that is, wise and good people who are acquainted with him, and with whom his secret is) do not see his day,–the day of his judging for them; this was the thing he complained of in his own case (ch. xxiii. 8), that he could not see God appearing on his behalf to plead his cause,–the day of his judging against open and notorious sinners, that is called his day, Ps. xxxvii. 13. We believe that day will come, but we do not see it, because it is future, and its presages are secret. 3. Though this is a mystery of Providence, yet there is a reason for it, and we shall shortly know why the judgment is deferred; even the wisest, and those who know God best, do not yet see it. God will exercise their faith and patience, and excite their prayers for the coming of his kingdom, for which they are to cry day and night to him, Luke xviii. 7.
For the proof of this, that wicked people prosper, Job specifies two sorts of unrighteous ones, whom all the world saw thriving in their iniquity:–
I. Tyrants, and those that do wrong under pretence of law and authority. It is a melancholy sight which has often been seen under the sun, wickedness in the place of judgment (Eccl. iii. 16), the unregarded tears of the oppressed, while on the side of the oppressors there was power (Eccl. iv. 1), the violent perverting of justice and judgment, Eccl. v. 8. 1. They disseize their neighbours of their real estates, which came to them by descent from their ancestors. They remove the land-marks, under pretence that they were misplaced (v. 2), and so they encroach upon their neighbours’ rights and think they effectually secure that to their posterity which they have got wrongfully, by making that to be an evidence for them which should have been an evidence for the rightful owner. This was forbidden by the law of Moses (Deut. xix. 14), under a curse, Deut. xxvii. 17. Forging or destroying deeds is now a crime equivalent to this. 2. They dispossess them of their personal estates, under colour of justice. They violently take away flocks, pretending they are forfeited, and feed thereof; as the rich man took the poor man’s ewe lamb, 2 Sam. xii. 4. If a poor fatherless child has but an ass of his own to get a little money with, they find some colour or other to take it away, because the owner is not able to contest with them. It is all one if a widow has but an ox for what little husbandry she has; under pretence of distraining for some small debt, or arrears of rent, this ox shall be taken for a pledge, though perhaps it is the widow’s all. God has taken it among the titles of his honour to be a Father of the fatherless and a judge of the widows; and therefore those will not be reckoned his friends that do not to their utmost protect and help them; but those he will certainly reckon with as his enemies that vex and oppress them. 3. They take all occasions to offer personal abuses to them, v. 4. They will mislead them if they can when they meet them on the high-way, so that the poor and needy are forced to hide themselves from them, having no other way to secure themselves from them. They love in their hearts to banter people, and to make fools of them, and do them a mischief if they can, especially to triumph over poor people, whom they turn out of the way of getting relief, threaten to punish them as vagabonds, and so force them to abscond, and laugh at them when they have done. Some understand those barbarous actions (Job 24:9; Job 24:10) to be done by those oppressors that pretend law for what they do: They pluck the fatherless from the breast; that is, having made poor infants fatherless, they make them motherless too; having taken away the father’s life, they break the mother’s heart, and so starve the children and leave them to perish. Pharaoh and Herod plucked children from the breast to the sword; and we read of children brought forth to the murderers, Hos. ix. 13. Those are inhuman murderers indeed that can with so much pleasure suck innocent blood. They take a pledge of the poor, and so they rob the spital; nay, they take the poor themselves for a pledge (as some read it), and probably it was under this pretence that they plucked the fatherless from the breast, distraining them for slaves, as Neh. v. 5. Cruelty to the poor is great wickedness and cries aloud for vengeance. Those who show no mercy to such as lie at their mercy shall themselves have judgment without mercy. Another instance of their barbarous treatment of those they have advantage against is that they take from them even their necessary food and raiment; they squeeze them so with their extortion that they cause them to go naked without clothing (v. 10) and so catch their death. And if a poor hungry family has gleaned a sheaf of corn, to make a little cake of, that they may eat it and die, even that they take away from them, being well pleased to see them perish for want, while they themselves are fed to the full. 4. They are very oppressive to the labourers they employ in their service. They not only give them no wages, though the labourer is worthy of his hire (and this is a crying sin, Jam. v. 4), but they will not so much as give them meat and drink: Those that carry their sheaves are hungry; so some read it (v. 10), and it agrees with v. 11, that those who make oil within their walls, and with a great deal of toil labour at the wine-presses, yet suffer thirst, which was worse than muzzling the mouth of the ox that treads out the corn. Those masters forget that they have a Master in heaven who will not allow the necessary supports of life to their servants and labourers, not caring whether they can live by their labour or no. 5. It is not only among the poor country people, but in the cities also, that we see the tears of the oppressed (v. 12): Men groan from out of the city, where the rich merchants and traders are as cruel with their poor debtors as the landlords in the country are with their poor tenants. In cities such cruel actions as these are more observed than in obscure corners of the country and the wronged have easier access to justice to right themselves; and yet the oppressors there fear neither the restraints of the law nor the just censures of their neighbours, but the oppressed groan and cry out like wounded men, and can no more ease and help themselves, for the oppressors are inexorable and deaf to their groans.
II. He speaks of robbers, and those that do wrong by downright force, as the bands of the Sabeans and Chaldeans, which had lately plundered him. He does not mention them particularly, lest he should seem partial to his own cause, and to judge of men (as we are apt to do) by what they are to us; but among the Arabians, the children of the east (Job’s country), there were those that lived by spoil and rapine, making incursions upon their neighbours, and robbing travellers. See how they are described here, and what mischief they do, v. 5-8. 1. Their character is that they are as wild asses in the desert, untamed, untractable, unreasonable, Ishmael’s character (Gen. xvi. 12), fierce and furious, and under no restraint of law or government, Jer 2:23; Jer 2:24. They choose the deserts for their dwelling, that they may be lawless and unsociable, and that they may have opportunity of doing the more mischief. The desert is indeed the fittest place for such wild people, ch. xxxix. 6. But no desert can set men out of the reach of God’s eye and hand. 2. Their trade is to steal, and to make a prey of all about them. They have chosen it as their trade; it is their work, because there is more to be got by it, and it is got more easily, than by an honest calling. They follow it as their trade; they follow it closely; they go forth to it as their work, as man goes forth to his labour, Ps. civ. 23. They are diligent and take pains at it: They rise betimes for a prey. If a traveller be out early, they will be out as soon to rob him. They live by it as a man lives by his trade: The wilderness (not the grounds there but the roads there) yieldeth food for them and for their children; they maintain themselves and their families by robbing on the high-way, and bless themselves in it without any remorse of compassion or conscience, and with as much security as if it were honestly got; as Ephraim, Hos 12:7; Hos 12:8. 3. See the mischief they do to the country. They not only rob travellers, but they make incursions upon their neighbours, and reap every one his corn in the field (v. 6), that is, they enter upon other people’s ground, cut their corn, and carry it away as freely as if it were their own. Even the wicked gather the vintage, and it is their wickedness; or, as we read it, They gather the vintage of the wicked, and so one wicked man is made a scourge to another. What the wicked got by extortion (which is their way of stealing) these robbers get from them in their way of stealing; thus oftentimes are the spoilers spoiled, Isa. xxxiii. 1. 4. The misery of those that fall into their hands (Job 24:7; Job 24:8): They cause the naked, whom they have stripped, not leaving them the clothes to their backs, to lodge, in the cold nights, without clothing, so that they are wet with the showers of the mountains, and, for want of a better shelter, embrace the rock, and are glad of a cave or den in it to preserve them from the injuries of the weather. Eliphaz had charged Job with such inhumanity as this, concluding that Providence would not thus have stripped him if he had not first stripped the naked of their clothing, ch. xxii. 6. Job here tells him there were those that were really guilty of those crimes with which he was unjustly charged and yet prospered and had success in their villanies, the curse they laid themselves under working invisibly; and Job thinks it more just to argue as he did, from an open notorious course of wickedness inferring a secret and future punishment, than to argue as Eliphaz did, who from nothing but present trouble inferred a course of past secret iniquity. The impunity of these oppressors and spoilers is expressed in one word (v. 12): Yet God layeth not folly to them, that is, he does not immediately prosecute them with his judgments for these crimes, nor make them examples, and so evince their folly to all the world. He that gets riches, and not by right, at his end shall be a fool, Jer. xvii. 11. But while he prospers he passes for a wise man, and God lays not folly to him until he saith, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, Luke xii. 20.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
JOB – CHAPTER 24
JOB’S CONTINUING REBUTTAL TO ELIPHAZ
Verses 1-25:
Verse 1 inquires just why the Almighty, who has appointed a day or time of retribution judgment to the wicked, does not the righteous (now) see his days of judgment? Why does God wait to heap judgment upon the wicked beyond death instead of sending it upon him now? Act 1:7; Rom 2:5-9. Job laments that all men may now see the judgment of God upon the wicked. Rather than having the judgment delayed to the future, Joe 1;15; 2Pe 3:10.
Verses 2, 3 state that some “remove the landmarks,” the property boundaries set by surveyors, steal the land, and violently take away the flocks and feast on them; Though such was specifically forbidden by Mosaic law, Deu 19:14; Pro 22:28; Pro 23:10-11. The charge adds that the wicked drive away the ass of the fatherless, the orphan, the weaker who can not resist their violence in robbery. And they took the widow’s ox for a pledge, until she paid exorbitant tribute imposed on her, as also forbidden, Deu 24:6; Deu 24:10; Deu 24:12; Deu 24:17.
Verse 4 asserts that they “the wicked” push the poor out of the way, off the roadside when they meet them, offering them no alms, clothes, food or compassion, a thing Eliphaz had charged against Job, without evidence, Job 22:8; 1Sa 8:3. The poor in spirit and in property often banded together for strength, even when driven into hiding in deserts and wilderness.
Verse 5, 6 describe the plight of poverty of the poor and oppressed of the earth. As poor, hungry, often starving Bedouins of the desert, they arose early to go forth to rob, to secure food for themselves and their children. They arose early because caravans usually traveled through the deserts, beginning before daylight, resting in the heat of the noontime, then traveling till the late evening. Like wild asses these poor Bedouins find their food, at one time in the field, at another in the desert, but never piled up in a barn or stable, Isa 30:24.
Verse 7 charges that the wicked caused the naked to lodge without clothing, to sleep nigh naked in- the cold, where frost often falls in the night, Gen 31:40; Exo 22:26; Deu 24:12-13.
Verse 8 explains that the oppressed poor, Bedouins of the field and desert, like Ishmael the “wild-ass of a man,” were often wet with showers and dew that caused them to cling to crevices, in huge rocks, for want of a better shelter, La 4:5; Heb 11:39; Gen 16:12.
Verses 9, 10 assert that the wicked pluck (take away) frivolously, children from the breasts of widows, kidnapping the children for barter in the slave markets in city areas. They take a pledge of a top garment of the poor, causing him to go near naked, without clothing. What was worse they worked the poor in the fields, and took away the sheaf, not leaving enough fallen grain for the poor people than the Lord provided for the laboring ox, Deu 25:4; 1Co 9:7-14. Yet they did not provide for the hunger and thirst of their laborers.
Verses 11, 12 charge that the wicked required the poor to press the oil within their own walls but also tread the winepress and suffer thirst in the wall enclosed olive gardens and vineyards of their wicked oppressors, Isa 5:5.
Verse 12 adds that men groaned from without as well as within the cities. The soul of the wounded, the dying cried aloud for help or relief, but none came to their rescue, Exo 1:11; Exo 2:23; Eze 30:24. Yet, Job laments that God does not lay the judgment of their folly upon them, at that time, that others might visibly see His hatred for such wickedness, Psa 50:1; Ecc 8:11; Mal 2:17; Mal 3:15; Rom 2:4-5; 2Pe 3:15.
Verse 13 describes the wicked as rebels, anarchists against the light of truth. They do not recognize that truth and right exist, much less walk in the way of truth, light, and holiness, Pro 2:13; Joh 3:19-20.
Verse 14 explains that the murderer arises early in the morning, with the sun, hides himself, lies in wait to rob and murder the traveler, the innocent. In the East thieves steal at night, when men sleep, then murder at dawn, to escape detection and punishment, Psa 10:8.
Verses 15, 16 add that the eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight to cover his adultery in darkness of the night, even disguising his face by wearing a veil to avoid being recognized, Pro 7:9; Psa 10:11. Then in the night they dug through the earthen brick walls that they had spotted in the daytime, to reach their adulterous victims. This they did, Job asserted, because they know not the light, Job 38:12-13; Joh 3:20; Eph 5:11-13. Thieves do “break through” to steal, Mat 6:19; Eze 12:7.
Verse 17 declares that the wicked .adulterer shrinks from the morning light, as if it were the shadow of death, Joh 3:19-20. He fears the light, more than the righteous fears darkness, because his deeds are evil, Job 3:5; Psa 73:18-19; Jer 2:26; 2Co 5:10-11; Rev 6:16-17.
Verse 18 states that the wicked were as swift as the floodwaters to reach their punishment here on earth, according to his accuser friends. It was a premise that Job denied. He contended that their punishment did not come upon them at the moment of their guilt, through it was sure to come, in the future. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar contended that present suffering, calamities, were always evidence of personal guilt and wickedness in those who suffer and that the wicked would not live to enjoy the fruit of their vineyards, Job 20:17; Job 15:33. With this false premise they pestered and tortured Job as a wicked sinner, Joh 9:2-3; See also Psa 73:18-20; Isa 23:10.
Verse 19 observes that drought and heat consume the snow waters that are quickly dried up, in contrast with living, flowing springs. As the melted snow is soon gone, leaving no trace, so the grave soon swallows up the wicked, according to Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. Yet, the wicked too may live a long life, before judgment comes to him, as come it will, Job 6:16-18; Joh 5:28-29; Heb 9:27.
Verse 20 declares that the womb that bare the wicked, or the mother of the wicked, will forget him, put him out of mind and the maggot-worm shall feed sweetly on him. He shall not be remembered or memorialized any more, because of his wickedness. This is the position of Job’s adversaries, a false premise. For mothers do not forget their wicked children, even to the grave, Isa 49:15; Job 18:17; Pro 10:7. They held that a wicked man would always die of some violent attack, like a tree in a windstorm, or a broken staff that was beyond repair, Isa 15:5.
Verse 21 states that the wicked one evil-treats the barren, the childless who has no children, to seek revenge on the evil doer. Neither does the wicked show kindness to the widow, Job’s friends had argued; and they insinuated that Job had done all or part of this wickedness for which he was now suffering justly. They judged without having the facts, Job 2:6-10; Joh 9:2-3; Joh 11:4.
Verses 22, 23 return to Job’s reply to the reasons given by his friends for his suffering. He, the Lord, prolongs the life of even his enemies. In Him they live on, and move, and have their being, drawing their life to old age, Psa 36:10; Deu 28:66; Act 17:28. Though the Lord prolongs the days of the wicked His eyes are upon his ways; and all wickedness shall be brought to judgment, Rom 2:4-9; Ecc 12:13-14. See also Ecc 9:9; Pro 15:3.
Verse 24 concludes that the wicked are exalted in their wickedness for a little while, in comparison with eternity, Psa 37:35-36. Yet, they are brought low, humbled, taken out of the way as hinderers among men, while holding exalted positions; To be “cut off” as the “tops of ears of corn,” means in ripe old age, in maturity of days, by natural death, Gen 49:33; Job 9:24; Job 21:13.
Verse 25 challenges Job’s three feigned friends that if what he has said was not true, who of them would make him to be a liar? Who of them would give evidence that what he had said was worthless, invalid, void of factual truth? He was willing for the premise and testimony of his defense to be examined meticulously and defensively. Would that every child of God would be strengthened to this extent, as admonished, 2Ti 2; 15; 1Pe 3:15.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
CONTINUATION OF JOBS REPLY TO ELIPHAZ
Prosecutes his own view of the Divine government. Enlarges on the crimes of one part of men and the sufferings of another as the consequences of them, to shew that judgment is not executed on the ungodly in this world, and that men often suffer without anything in their own conduct to deserve it. The ungodly, however, not left unpunished; and their prosperity and power only for a time.
I. Proposes a question for solution in reference to the Divine government (Job. 24:1). Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not sec his days? Or, Why are not [stated] times [of judgment] laid up (or kept) by the Almighty, and [why do] they that know Him not see His days [of inflicting punishment on the ungodly?] The question takes the fact for granted and asks the reason of it. The fact supposed
1. That stated times of judgment, or Divine court-days, for trying mens actions are manifestly not held. Men not brought before a Divine tribunal in this life. The great assizes yet to come. Such a day appointed (Act. 17:31; Act. 10:42; Rom. 2:16; Rom. 14:10; Rev. 20:12). Men only registered now for judgment and public trial on that day. Sins in this life apparently winked at by God (Psa. 50:21). Sentence against an evil work not speedily executed. The fact sometimes staggering to the godly, especially in earlier times. Remains as a trial for faith and patience. Abused by the ungodly to impenitence and licentiousness.
2. Times for the visible infliction of punishment on the wicked not seen by the godly in this life. For the most part sin suffered by God to pass with impunity as to this world. The fact noted by Job (ch. Job. 21:7); by Asaph (Psa. 73:5); by David (Psa. 50:21); by Solomon (Ecc. 8:11); by Jeremiah (Jer. 12:1); by Habakkuk, (Hab. 1:15-16). Visible judgments rare. Such examplesthe deluge; destruction of Sodom, &c.; Herods death (Act. 12:23). According to the views of Eliphaz and his two friends, such cases should have been of frequent occurrence.
From the text observe
1. Times, in the sense of events, not hidden from the Almighty. All actions, bad and good, naked and open before Him. Sin, though not punished, not the less perceived. Thou God seest me, a truth both for the godly and the ungodly.
2. Times for the accomplishment of future events not hidden from God. The future as truly as the present under His perfect inspection. The times and seasons reserved in His own power (Act. 1:15). Though unknown to us, not the less certain to Him (Act. 15:18.)
3. Sufficient to describe the godly as those that know God. Such knowledge one of
(1) Certainty (1Jn. 4:16);
(2) Divine communication (Joh. 17:2-3); (Mat. 11:27);
(3) Experience (1Pe. 2:3);
(4) Regard and love, as Psa. 1:6;
(5) Acquaintance and fellowship (Job. 22:21; Gen. 5:24; Gen. 6:9). As the result of such knowledge the righteous trust in God as a Father (Psa. 9:10). Not to know God the characteristic of the ungodly (1Th. 4:5; 2Th. 1:8). Godly men the friends of God. Abrahams title of nobility shared by each of them. (Compare Jas. 2:3; Isa. 41:8, with Luk. 12:4; Joh. 15:14-15).
4. Gods friends made acquainted with His purposes and procedure in the world (Gen. 17:17; Psa. 25:4; Amo. 3:7; Joh. 15:15). The characteristic of the ungodly, that they regard not the works of the Lord nor consider the operation of His hands (Psa. 28:5; Isa. 5:12). Wisdom given to the children of God to discern and know the times (Luk. 12:56; 1Th. 5:1-4; Rom. 13:11). Times and seasons, however, while still future, reserved in the Lords own knowledge, except in so far as He is pleased to communicate them (Act. 1:7; Mat. 24:36; Rev. 1:1).
II. Describes the conduct of various classes of men in relation to their fellows, with its consequences (Job. 24:2-8).
First: Their conduct (Job. 24:2-4).
1. Fraud, theft, and violence (Job. 24:2). Exhibited in
(1.) Removing landmarks. Placing farther back the stones erected to distinguish their own fields from their neighbours,common in Eastern and other countries where hedges are not frequent; and doing this for the purposes of fraudulently enlarging their own estate at the expense of their neighbours. Expressly forbidden in the law of Moses (Deu. 19:14). Persons guilty of it pronounced accursed (Deu. 27:14). Found in the days of Hosea (Hos. 5:10).
(2.) Stealing sheep and feeding them as if their own (Job. 24:2). They violently take away (or steal) flocks and feed thereof (margin, feed them). Jobs own experience in reference to his oxen, asses, and camels (ch. Job. 1:14-15; Job. 1:17). Pasturing the stolen sheep an aggravation of the crime. Indicated boldness and perseverance in sin. The practice common among the Bedouins. Marks an uncivilized state of society. Practised even in Scotland in the last century in regard to larger cattle. Observe(i.) The character of sin to sear and deaden the conscience; (ii.) The ungodly often apparently permitted to enjoy the fruit of their sin.
2. Cruelty and hardheartedness (Job. 24:3).
(1.) In reference to the fatherless. They drive away the ass of the fatherless (in order to appropriate it to themselves, probably on some pretended claim, perhaps, as in the next clause, as a pledge or pawn for some loan or debt). The one ass of the fatherless his means of subsistence. The fatherless not only poor, but without any to defend them from such oppression. An ass still the means of subsistence to fatherless and poor children in the East, being used both for riding and carrying burdens.
(2) In reference to the widow. Take the widows ox for a pledge,taking it in pawn for the loan of a trifling sum, and keeping it in their possession. An aggravated cruelty, the ox being the only means of her subsistence by ploughing her little plot of ground and yielding her milk. The widow herself an object of sympathy, her poverty having necessitated her to ask a loan or incur a debt with her hard-hearted neighbour. The sin expressly forbidden by the law (Exo. 22:26-27; Deu. 24:6; Deu. 24:10. No flesh in mans obdurate heart.
3. Insolence and oppression of the poor (Job. 24:4). They turn the needy out of the way,acting towards them with overbearing violence; compelling them by their cruelty and oppression to abandon the highways and frequented parts of the country, and thus preventing them from following their ordinary pursuits; perhaps removing them in order to take possession of their little fields; or forbidding them the highway for their ox or their ass. The clearances of modern times. A sin not to aid the poor; still more to expel them from the neighbourhood as burdens and nuisances. The poor never to cease out of the land (Deu. 15:11). Left as objects for the exercise of kindness and benevolence (Mat. 26:11. To oppress the poor is to reproach their Maker.
Second: The consequence of this oppression (Job. 24:4). The poor of the earth (or land) hide themselves together; disappearing as unable to endure the oppression or resist their oppressors. When the wicked rise [in power], men hide themselves (Pro. 28:20). Forced by oppression into solitudes where they congregate and enjoy comparative safety. The godly under persecution thus often made to wander in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth (Heb. 11:38). The case of Elijah and other servants of God in the days of Ahab and Jezebel (1Ki. 17:3; 1Ki. 18:13). The pilgrim fathers of England and the Huguenots of France. Bedouins and others in the East often obliged to seek refuge in the desert from the oppressions of tyrannical governors. Their life in such circumstances made one of privation and suffering (Job. 24:5). Behold, as wild asses in the desert [instead of their own fields as formerly], go they forth to their work, rising betimes [before the excessive heat] for a prey (or to obtain food); the wilderness yieldeth food [a scanty and miserable subsistence] for them and for their children (whole families being thus driven forth from their homes and from society). The wild ass a solitary, timorous animal, whose only defence is its heels. The reference here rather to their solitude and fear than to savage wildness. A barbarous and uncivilized state, however, the likely consequence of the treatment they receive (Gen. 16:12; Gen. 21:20).(Job. 24:6). They reap every one [by himself] his corn (margin, mingled corn or dredge, a mixture of grain ordinarily used as fodder for cattle, and so generally translated, as in Isa. 30:24, in the field (or perhaps, they reap [as hired or forced labourers] every one in a field which is not his own); and they gather the vintage of the wicked (to obtain as hirelings a subsistence for their families; the proprietors of the vineyards characterized as wicked from their cruelty and oppression of the poor, but in time of vintage, glad to obtain their aid in gathering the grapes; or possibly obliged to render forced labour so common in the east). They cause the naked (the poor and poorly clad) to lodge (or pass the night) without clothing [having taken to pledge their upper garment, usually serving also as a covering by night] (Deu. 24:13), that they have no covering in the cold (the nights in eastern countries being often as cold as the days are hot) (Gen. 31:40). They are wet (or drenched) with the showers (or heavy driving rains) of the mountains (where, as travellers often experience, such storms of wind and rain are common), and embrace the rock (clinging to some cave or hollow in its side) for want of a shelter.
The picture presented in the eighth verse suggests
The True Rock and its Shelter
1. As sinners men are by nature in the condition of the persons here referred to,exposed to a storm. That storm Gods righteous anger on account of sin. The wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Rom. 1:18; Col. 3:6). Wrath to come awaiting the unsaved sinner. The day of judgment the great day of Divine wraththe wrath of the Lamb (Rev. 6:16-17). That wrath compared to a storm. On the wicked God shall rain snares (Margin, burning coals), fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest (Psa. 11:6). No storm on earth ever equal to it. (i.) Other storms affect only the body, this the soul; (ii.) Others endure but for a short time, this for ever; (iii.) Others may have peace within; this fills with anguish and despair. Felt at times in the sinners conscience even in this life. Even then intolerable. Escape from it in this life possible. Hereafter rocks and mountains invoked in vain for shelter. Exposure to the storm wherever sin is still unpardoned. Though now unfelt, yet even ready to burst upon the Christless soul. The case of men universally. Men by nature children of wrath, even as others (Eph. 2:3.).
2. Men in themselves are without a shelter. Have no means of averting or screening themselves from deserved wrath. Wealth unable to purchase a shelter from it. Power unable to command one. Science unable to contrive one. Good works unable to merit one. Our own works like Adam and Eves fig-leaved aprons. Monarch and mendicant equally powerless to screen themselves from this storm. No shelter without satisfaction to the demands of a righteous law. The required shelter to be strong enough to resist the brunt of the storm. Able to stand between the sinner and the storm that must otherwise beat on his defenceless head.
3. Such a shelter provided in Christ. Christ, given by God the Father for that purpose, came into the world to save sinners from the storm. Promised as an hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest (Isa. 32:2). Fitted to be such a shelter. God and man in one person. God manifest in the flesh. As man, Christ has done and suffered in our stead what the law of God demands in the way of obedience and penalty. As God in our nature, He is able to stand as a substitute for us, and to give infinite value to His obedience and suffering in our stead. Provided for us in pure love on the part of God (Joh. 3:16). Gods will that all should flee to and find shelter in this rock. Christ as a rock
(1.) Affords perfect safety to the soul that trusts in Him. A rock is strong, firm, impenetrable. None ever trusted in Him and perished;
(2) Never changes. A rock the most abiding and unchanging object in nature. Christ the Rock of Agesthe everlasting Rock. The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
(3) Is sufficient to, receive and shelter all who betake themselves to Him. Rocky caverns in Juda, as the cave of Adullam, large enough to contain thousands of men. Room in Christ for millions at once. Millions sheltered in this Rock already, and yet there is room.
(4) Is comfortable and well replenished. Caverns sometimes found already furnished with necessary articles left there by previous occupants; the contrary, however, being generally the case. In Christ, all things provided needful for comfort and well-being, both here and hereafter. Christ made of God to those who are in Him, both wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption (1Co. 1:30). The world, life, death, all things, ours when we are Christs. All fulness in Him, out of which we may receive even grace upon grace. All our needs supplied. In the world tribulation, but in Him peace. Grace found in Him sufficient for daily duty, daily temptation, daily trial.
(5) Is accessible to all. Stands open and free. Its entrance obstructed by no formidable barrier. No steep and rugged height to climb in order to reach it. Accessible even to a child. Entered not by toil or merit, but by faith,believing Gods testimony true concerning it, and so trusting in it. Over its portal stand the words: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
(6) All are welcome to its shelter. Entrance without money and without price. No qualification required but sense of need, desire for shelter, and belief in its sufficiency. A guilty, helpless sinner desiring shelter, a sufficient passport. All classes without distinction invited to enter and be safe.
4. This Rock is to be embraced. A rock of no use for shelter but as it is fled to, entered, and clung to. Christ is for personal acceptance, appropriation, and trust. The ark, when made, to be entered by Noah and his family. Not enough to hear of the rock, look at it, understand about it, or be near it. Must be entered and embraced. Found in Christ gives safety, not found near Him. No time to be lost in entering this Rock. Too late when the storm descends. Behold, now is the accepted time! behold now is the day of salvation!
Important question. Where am I? In the Rock? or still exposed to the storm? If the former, then let the inhabitant of the Rock sing, and praise aloud the God of his salvation (Isa. 42:11). If the latter is still the case, the call is, Come in now. The door still open. Still room. Delay not. Why remain outside exposed to the storm? Death hastens. The door will soon be shut. Entrance may within another hour be impossible. Then no shelter from the storm for evermore. To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart.
III. Proceeds further to describe the cruelty and oppression of the ungodly rich, and their apparent impunity (Job. 24:9). They pluck the fatherless from the breast (infants whose fathers are already dead, and whom these men snatch from the widowed mothers breast to make their own, as pledges or in payment of some real or pretended debt), and take a pledge of the poor (either the poor man himself to be their bondslave till the debt is paid, as Lev. 25:39; Mat. 18:25; or his garment, as ch. Job. 22:6). They cause him (the poor whose garment they have taken in pawn) to go naked, without clothing, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry (the handful of corn they have plucked to satisfy their hunger, or the gleanings of the harvest field, which were usually regarded, and were afterwards by the law of Moses expressly appointed, as the perquisite of the poor, Lev. 19:9); which make oil within their walls (for the benefit of these rich oppressors; or who toil at noontide in their vineyards as hired, or rather as forced, labourers), and tread their wine-presses and suffer thirst (not being permitted to allay their thirst with the juice of the grapes they were laboriously expressing.)
Slaves in the midst of natures bounty curst,
And in the loaden vineyard suffer thirst.
Addisons Letters from Italy.
Cruelty and oppression not confined to the country (Job. 24:12). Men (or the dying) groan [under injuries and oppressions] from the city [where justice is wont to be exercised, and where fear might be supposed to restrain evil-doers), and the soul of the wounded[not only having their spirits but their very life crushed out of them by oppression] crieth out [to God and men for help, or to God for vengeance]: yet God layeth not folly to them(apparently lays it not to their charge, or appears to give no heed to it; or, does nothing absurd or unbecoming His Divine character in permitting such things; or, according to another way of reading the word here rendered folly, pays no attention to their prayer, viz, that of these suffering and oppressed ones). The frequent complaint in the Psalms that the wicked oppress the godly poor with impunity, while God appears to take no notice either of the crimes of the one party or the sufferings of the other (Psa. 10:1-14; Psa. 35:17; Psa. 42:9; Psa. 44:23-24). Observe
1. Crimes committed and cruelty perpetrated while God keeps silence (Psa. 50:21). Sentence against an evil work not often speedily executed (Ecc. 8:11). Yet forbearance no acquitance.
2. The effect of sin to harden the heart and deaden the feelings of humanity.
3. Love of power or gain stops at no crime or cruelty to attain its object.
4. Sin assimilates men to Satan, the murderer from the beginning.
5. Great sufferings often superinduced by other mens sins (Job. 24:12).
6. The cry of oppressed ones terrible for the oppressor (Jas. 5:4).
7. City as well as country the theatre of the oppressions of some and the sufferings of others (Job. 24:12). Solemn warning in this verse for such cities as London. Eternity alone will reveal how many lives have been crushed out of men and women by oppressive labour and scanty remuneration.
IV. Describes other classes of wicked men,those who practise sin in secrecy and under the cover of darkness (Job. 24:13). They (or these, as distinguished from the former) are of those that rebel against the light (hating and shunning it as unfavourable to their wicked deeds, Joh. 3:19-20); they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof (prefer darkness to light, and night to day, for the perpetration of their crimes). The first of these classes, the Murderer (Job. 24:14). The murderer rising with the light (at earliest dawn) killeth the poor and needy [as unable to resist him and his demands], and in the night is as a thief (or, acts the thief). In the East, murders are committed at early dawn, the most favourable part of the day both for travelling and work, while thieves or housebreakers practise their crimes during the night.The second class, the Adulterer (Job. 24:15). The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight (the evening or night, as more favourable for his purpose, Pro. 7:9, saying, No eye shall see me, and disguiseth (muffles up or puts a mask on) his face. In the dark they (the two classes already mentioned, or perhaps a third, Burglars or Housebreakers) dig through houses (insinuating themselves, like the adulterer, or literally, digging an entrance for themselves, like the housebreaker, through the mud walls of the houses) which they had marked for themselves (or having shut themselves up) in the daytime; they know not the light (hate and shun it). For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death (as hateful and as feared, as discovering and detecting their evil deeds (Eph. 5:13); or, the shadow of death is to them as morning,darkness is as desirable and delightful to them as morning is to others); if one know them (or discover them, or when one can recognize, people, i.e., in the light of the morning), they are in the terrors of the shadows of death (or, it is the terrors of, &c., to them; or, the terrors, &c., are upon them.) Observe
1. The character of sin, that loves the darkness for its commission. A reptile that loves the darkness of caves and dungeons. A work of darkness, to be practised only out of observation, and in the ignorance of God and truth. A testimony to the value and excellence of godliness, that it does not fear the light (Joh. 3:21).
2. Sin opposed to the light of truth as well as to the light of day. Hence hatred to the truth, which both exposes and opposes sin. The great condemnation, to have the light and yet hate and avoid it (Joh. 3:20). The sin of Christless persons in a Christian land, neighbourhood, or family.
3. A sovereign authority in light to keep men from evil deeds.
4. The present in many places a time of light; hence corresponding responsibility.
5. Murder a common crime where not restrained by fear (Job. 24:14). Feet swift to shed blood, part of the inspired description of fallen humanity (Rom. 3:15).
6. Sin aggravated when committed with purpose and deliberation (Job. 24:15).
7. The ungodly, when not committing iniquity, often plotting it.
8. Sin committed in forgetfulness of God. No eye seeth me.
9. The wicked often tortured between lust and fear. Raging lust before commission; deadly fear of detection in and after it.
10. Pleasures of sin dearly bought. The terrors of the shadow of death sooner or later the consequence of it. The ways of transgressors hard.
V. Describes the experience of the wicked (Job. 24:18). He is swift as the waters (or, light on the face of the waters; carried away by Divine vengeance as the foam or other light substance on the surface of the stream; or, gradually and quietly, though swiftly, borne along to the grave where he finally disappears); their portion (or estate) is cursed (ultimately abandoned to desolation) in the earth (or land): he beholdeth not the way of the vineyards (is cut off ultimately from his former haunts, pleasures, and pursuits, from the cheerful ways of men). Drought and heat [in summer] consume the snow waters (gradually dry up the torrents and mountain streams formed by the melted snow (ch. Job. 6:15; Job. 6:18); so doth the grave (death and the invisible world, which sooner or later swallow up and cause to disappear from the earth) those that have sinned [in the gross and open way already, and yet to be, described]. The womb (even the mother that bare him) shall forget him (so worthless his character, and utterly abandoned by, and cut off from, friends and relatives): the worm shall feed sweetly upon him (or shall be sweet to him, his only companion now, ch. Job. 21:33); he shall be no more remembered [having done nothing to cause his memory to be cherished, but the contrary (Pro. 10:7)]: and wickedness (or the wicked man) shall be broken as a tree [useless and already decayed]. Observe
1. The character of the selfish and ungodly, however rich, a worthless one. The sinner in his best and most prosperous state light as foam on the surface of the stream.
2. All the sinners earthly enjoyments speedily brought to an end. Slowly or suddenly, the grave terminates his pleasures and pursuits (Job. 24:19). The pleasures of sin but for a season.
3. The grave only formidable to those who have led a sinful life, and die without renewal of heart and removal of guilt.
4. Humbling contrast between the grace and its wormy inhabitants, and the sinful indulgences and worldly pomp of a godless and prosperous life. The rich man in the Gospel lifts up his eyes in hell, and craves, not for deliverance, but a drop of water to cool his burning tongue.
5. Sin soon covers mens names with oblivion, and makes even their nearest relations to forget them (Job. 24:20). The righteous is held in everlasting remembrance, but the memory of the wicked shall rot (Pro. 10:7).
VI. Returns to the character and ways of the ungodly as meriting the punishment already mentioned (Job. 24:21-24). He evil entreateth the barren that beareth not (thus adding affliction to the afflicted, barrenness being held a reproach and at the same time leaving the widow without natural defenders), and doeth not good to the widow (not only withholding the sympathy and succour which her circumstances claim, but acting towards her in a way the very reverse). He draweth also the mighty with his power (attaching him to his interests for the purpose of oppressing others); he riseth up (for the purpose of completing his wicked designs; or, he rises to power), and no man is sure of life (so formidable his power and so regardless of right). Though it be given him to be in safety (by God himself, who bears long with him instead of punishing him at once in the midst of his wickedness), whereon he resteth (living at case and in security in consequence of this forbearance); yet his (viz., Gods) eyes are upon their ways (though now keeping silence and apparently winking at his evil deeds). They are exalted for a little while but are gone (Heb. and Marg. and are not, are no more, but disappear from the stage), and (are) brought low (by death which terminates at once their power and their pride); they are taken out of the way as all others (even the meanest whom they have oppressed), and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn. Observe
1. Injury done to a fellow creature a sin marked by God; that Sin aggravated when the injury is done to one already in any way afflicted (Job. 24:21). The afflicted, destitute and reproached, have already claims on our sympathy and succour.
2. A sin in the sight of God, not only to injure the afflicted and destitute, but even to withhold our sympathy and aid. Not to do the good in our power, a sin as well as to do evil (Pro. 3:27; Pro. 24:11-12). Neglect of the fifth commandment a sin as truly as the transgression of the sixth. Sins of omission discover the character and bring condemnation as truly as those of commission. The sins produced at last day for judgment, especially the latter (Mat. 25:42-45.) Pure and undefiled religion before God, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction (Jas. 1:27).
3. A high aggraration of sin when we not only do wrong ourselves, but endeacour by our influence to draw others into the same practice (Job. 24:22). Ahab specially branded in the Bible as not only having sinned himself, but also made Israel to sin. The character of the ungodly not only to sin themselves but to draw others into participation in their sin (Pro. 1:10-14).
4. An aggravated sin to abuse Gods goodness and forbearance to the practice of coil (Job. 24:23). Gods goodness intended, on the contrary, to lead to repentance (Rom. 2:4). Sin persevered in on the calculation that to-morrow shall be as this day and much more abundant (Isa. 56:12).
5. Sin, though passed over for the present, yet marked for future visitation, if not prevented by timely repentance (Job. 24:23). Sentence against an evil work not speedily executed. The sinner allowed to do evil a hundred times (Exo. 8:11-12). Yet Gods eyes are upon mens ways.
6. The power and pride of the ungodly but of short continuance (Job. 24:24).
7. Sinners often cut off when their prosperity has reached its highest pitch, like the tops of the cars of corn.
8. Men spared to ripen either for mercy or judgment.
VII. Challenges contradiction or refutation (Job. 24:25). If it be not so now [that the case is as I represented it], who will make me a liar (or prove me in error), and make my speech nothing worth? Jobs position that of Asaph (Psalms 73), that the ungodly often live long and prosper in this world, and are without any bands in their death, though ultimately brought to judgment. His position assailed by his friends as derogatory to Gods righteousness as the Governor of the world, and as savouring of infidelity. In Jobs view, his position unaffected by their speeches and arguments. Observe:
1. Our duty to see that the views we hold in regard to God and His moral government rest on solid grounds.
2. Our duty in regard to subjects upon which there is room for doubt, to be open to conviction and argument on the opposite side.
3. Our views on all religious subjects to be brought to the touchstone of reason and Scripture. Truth able to bear testing.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
TEXT 24:112
24 Why are times not laid up by the Almighty?
And why do not they that know him see his days?
2 There are that remove the landmarks;
They violently take away flocks, and feed them.
3 They drive away the ass of the fatherless;
They take the widows ox for a pledge.
4 They torn the needy out of the way:
The poor of the earth all hide themselves.
5 Behold, as wild asses in the desert
They go forth to their work seeking diligently for food;
The wilderness yieldeth them bread for their children.
6 They cut their provender in the field;
And they glean the vintage of the wicked.
7 They lie all night naked without clothing,
And have no covering in the cold.
8 They are wet with the showers of the mountains,
And embrace the rock for want of a shelter.
9 There are that pluck the fatherless from the breast,
And take a pledge of the poor;
10 So that they go about naked without clothing,
And being hungry they carry the sheaves.
11 They make oil within the walls of these men;
They tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst.
12 From out of the populous city men groan,
And the soul of the wounded crieth out:
Yet God regardeth not the folly.
COMMENT 24:112
Job. 24:1Jobs reply continues. As in chapter 21, he moves from his specific experience to mans experience in general. He describes the oppression of wicked, unscrupulous princes and the resultant misery of the poor enslaved by the burdens engendered by poverty. This section of Jobs speech is a negative parallel to Job. 21:7-17. There God did not punish the impious; here He does not recover the poor from oppression. These two emphases are fundamental in the Old Testament doctrine of God, i.e., that He will judge the wicked and liberate the oppressed. Where is the evidence for Gods righteous providence in His dealings with man? Job here reflects upon the cosmic dimensions of human misery. Why are the times of judgment (not in the textadded in R. S. V.) for wicked not evident?Job. 18:21; Psa. 36:11.
Job. 24:2The LXX adds the subject, the wicked, to line one and renders as the wicked remove the landmarks. The Law strictly condemns such actionDeu. 19:14; Pro. 22:28; Pro. 23:10; and Hos. 5:10. The powerful wicked not only remove the boundary stones but also seize the flocks of their weaker neighbors, and openly pasture them on stolen land. The images here are crystal clear; the powerful aggressively dispossess the weak, and nothing is done about it. Does God know about this? Does He have any compassion at all?
Job. 24:3The defenseless orphans and widows are reduced to abject poverty. Members of these classes had only one animal, and thus they would be rendered without any means of support after their ass or ox was plundered. The wicked publicly flaunt the helpless. Even the Babylonians imposed fines on a person who takes the ox of one in distress (The Code of Hammurabi, No. 241)2Sa. 12:4; Deu. 24:17; and Exo. 22:26. All pledges from the poor were to be returned if they were necessary for livelihood. Job asks God what He does about the behavior of such calloused men. Their heinous crimes against the poor must be judged if we dwell in a moral universe.
Job. 24:4The poor are deprived of their rightsAmo. 4:1. The poor, once deprived, have no place to turn. This is suggested in the Hebrew text as it has are hidden together. The normal sense of the reflective form means that they hide themselves, which makes perfectly good sense here.
Job. 24:5Hopelessly oppressed, the poor have been destroyed by extortion and diabolical degradation. Even Plato in his Laws and The Republic held that only the elite minority had a claim to human rights and privileges. Our own American history has its own record of depriving thousands, sometimes millions, of their rights, originally from God as beings in His image.
Job. 24:6The poor subsist on the type of food used to feed animals. What a precious livelihood. They gather their fodder (A. V. provender), and the shift from plural to singular means each one gathers his own. The A. V. renders an uncertain word glean. Gleaning was an authorized occupation of the poor. If the reaping found in line one is that of a hired laborer, then the parallel would necessitate that the gathering of grapes would be done by those being paid for the work. Often, the rich are adjudged to be wicked, and sometimes they are!
Job. 24:7The abject poverty of those described in this verse leaves them without clothing in the cold night wind. Misery begets miseryno food, no clothing, no shelter from the cold. Here Job starkly contrasts the poor and the wicked richJob. 24:2-4. Jobs agonizing description continues; his heartbreaking picture of human privation versus privilege is further enlarged.
Job. 24:8The poor embrace the rocks in the mountains since they have no other shelter. They cling (Gen. 29:13) to the security afforded by the rocks. Hardly a more devastating picture could be sketched to reveal their exposure and wretchedness. Their dearest friends are the rocks.
Job. 24:9In transition, the imagery takes us from one exploited group to another. The verse presents a problem to many commentators (egs. Kissane, Gray, Dhorme, Pope, et al), but does it necessarily interrupt the account of the poor as is alleged? Job has thus far described the meagre possession of the poor, the humiliating circumstances under which scavengers reek out a minimal subsistence. We have toured the cities and the desert places; now we must face those in slavery. Those harsh taskmasters are heartless creditors and take a pledge from off of the poor. The Hebrew means to take something that is on the poor, i.e., their clothing, not merely something from the poor. The first line relates a cruel tyrant removing a baby from his mothers breast while she is being sold at auction. The parallel line suggests taking the clothes from their back (see Brown, Driver, Briggs).
Job. 24:10This verse confirms the need to modify the weak A. V. translation and also verifies that their clothes have been removed as pledge, in that they are here described as naked. They are starving and yet must carry the sheaves of their masters.[264] Even animals were not treated like these outcastsDeu. 25:4. In Israel one could not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain. Here a laborer is hungry while working in the midst of abundance. How torturing it would be to carry food, which one could not eat, when one is starving. The haves and the have nots are still with us. Though there are have nots in our own midst, the Third and Fourth Worlds are largely composed of the poor,[265] and with Job our contemporary we must ask why it occurs and how can we do anything about it?
[264] E. F. Sutcliffe, Journal Theological Studies, 1969, p. 174.
[265] This presents an enormous challenge to our Christian conscience. Neo-Marxism and various species of socialism are presently being set forth with Messianic vengeance, as though the worlds problems are all caused by hedonistic capitalism. The problem is human nature, not per se our socio-politico structures. Socialism has one consistencyfailure.
Job. 24:11The Hebrew text can be rendered between their rows(as R. S. V.), i.e., among the olive rows of the wicked they make oil. Dhorme rightly points out that this would be a strange place to press olives, and thus emends the text to read between the millstones. In sight of mouthwatering succulent grapes, they are panting with thirst.
Job. 24:12In Job. 24:12-16 Job focuses attention on violators of the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth commandments, i.e., murderers, adulterers, and thieves, who compose the city of men. From the city men cry out because of violence and social anomie.[266] Men cry out, but God pays no attention (same idiom in Job. 23:6) to the moral malaise. The Hebrew term rendered folly in A. V. means tastelessnessJob. 1:22or unseasoned and implies a lack of moral savor; yet God remains silent.
[266] All Christian believers must come to an understanding of this phenomenon. Since Hegel, western social theory has had no room for Gods purpose as a solution to our concrete problems of violence and social anomie. Nineteenth century social thought developed from Hegel to Marx by way of Weber, Mannheim, and Durkheim, into The Sociology of Knowledge Thesis (see the critique in my previous work, Newness on The Earth, pp. 44ff) and this socially based theory of knowledge will be critically evaluated in my doctoral thesis: The Kuhn-Popper Debate – Contemporary Revolution in Knowledge Paradigms: The Relationship of Scientific Theory to Scientific Progress. From Marxs creative destruction to views of contemporary modification of classical Marxism, the neo-Marxist based Frankfort School of Social Research utilizes the Freudian psychoanalytic method as a basis of a new epistemology grounded in Interest. Every creative development in 19th-20th century Social Theory makes fundamental contribution to contemporary Violence and Anomie. All forms of PoliticoRevolutionary-Liberation Theologies (e.g., Frankfort School of Social Research represented by Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, et. al.) must be understood and confronted in the name of Jobs redeemer.
See the following works for initial analysis and confrontation with these issues: Georges Soul Classic, Concerning Violence, many editions.
Hanah Arendt, On Violence (Penguin paperback, 1970).
John C. Bennett, ed., Christian Social Ethics in a Changing World (NY: Association Press, 1966).
Jacques Ellul, Violence (Seabury, E. T., 1969). Also, Political Illusion, Knopf, 1967. Oz Guinness, The Dust of Death (Inter-Varsity Press, 1973, chp. 5 Violence: Crisis or Catharsis?, pp. 151191.
Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations (NY: Basic Books, 1963) chp. Utopia and Violence; also his The Open Society and Its Enemies (2 vols., Harper Torch).
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XXIV.
(1) Why, seeing times are not hidden.Job, in this chapter, gives utterance to this perplexity, as it arises, not from his own case only, but from a survey of Gods dealings with the world generally. Why is it, he asks, since times and events are not hidden from the Almighty, that they who know Himthat is, believe in and love Himdo not see His days?that is, His days of retribution and judgment. Even those who love and serve God are as perplexed about His principles of government as those who know Him not. It is to be observed that the position of the second negative in the Authorised Version of this verse renders it highly ambiguous to the majority of readers. This ambiguity would entirely disappear if we read see not instead of not see.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Second division REVERSE SIDE OF THE MYSTERY OF EVIL GOD WINKS AT, AND SEEMINGLY PROSPERS, THE WICKED, chap. 24.
First half AN ARRAY OF FACTS TO SHOW THAT THE WORLD IS A SCENE OF WRONG IN WHICH THE WICKED OPPRESS, TRAMPLE UPON, AND SLAY, THE INNOCENT AND DEFENCELESS, Job 24:1-12.
First strophe If there be days of retribution, how is it that “God’s familiars” those who know so much about God never see his judgments? Job 24:1-4.
1. Times are not hidden, etc. Rather, Why are times not appointed by the Almighty? and ( why) do they that know him not see his days? Why, if it be as you say, that the wicked are punished in this world, (chap. Job 22:19-20,) is it that the servants of God do not see such infliction of justice?
Hidden Tsaphan, reserved, appointed. God’s judgments, like his ways, are hidden from sight until he pleases to bring them to the light; hence the phrase is common to express that which is divinely determined.
Know him Literally, his knowers. Compare Psa 36:10. His days Answers to times, which may be regarded as periods with specific days. The prophets frequently speak of days of judgment, but more particularly of a future great day of God. Joe 1:15; Isa 2:12. Of such a day Enoch prophesied, (Jud 1:14,) and at no time probably has its lurid light died away from the sky.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job’s Dialogue with Three Friends – Job 3:1 to Job 31:40, which makes up the major portion of this book, consists of a dialogue between Job and his three friends. In this dialogue, Job’s friends engage in three rounds of accusations against Job, with him offering three defenses of his righteousness. Thus, Job and his friends are able to confirm each of their views with three speeches, since the Scriptures tell us that a matter is confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses (2Co 13:1). The underlying theme of this lengthy dialogue is man’s attempt to explain how a person is justified before God. Job will express his intense grief (Job 3:1-26), in which his three friends will answer by finding fault with Job. He will eventually respond to this condemnation in a declaration of faith that God Himself will provide a redeemer, who shall stand on earth in the latter days (Job 19:25-27). This is generally understood as a reference to the coming of Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from their sins.
Job’s declaration of his redeemer in Job 19:23-29, which would be recorded for ever, certainly moved the heart of God. This is perhaps the most popular passage in the book of Job, and reflects the depth of Job’s suffering and plea to God for redemption. God certainly answered his prayer by recording Job’s story in the eternal Word of God and by allowing Job to meet His Redeemer in Heaven. I can imagine God being moved by this prayer of Job and moving upon earth to provide someone to record Job’s testimony, and moving in the life of a man, such as Abraham, to prepare for the Coming of Christ. Perhaps it is this prayer that moved God to call Abraham out of the East and into the Promised Land.
The order in which these three friends deliver their speeches probably reflects their age of seniority, or their position in society.
Scene 1 First Round of Speeches Job 3:1 to Job 14:22
Scene 2 Second Round of Speeches Job 15:1 to Job 21:34
Scene 3 Third Round of Speeches Job 22:1 to Job 31:40
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Hidden Ways of God with Regard to the Wicked
v. 1. Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, v. 2. Some remove the landmarks, v. 3. They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow’s ox for a pledge, v. 4. They turn the needy out of the way, v. 5. Behold, as wild asses in the desert, v. 6. They reap every one his corn in the field, v. 7. They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, v. 8. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, v. 9. They pluck the fatherless from the breast, v. 10. They cause him to go naked without clothing, v. 11. which make oil within their walls, v. 12. Men groan from out of the city, v. 13. They are of those that rebel against the light, v. 14. The murderer rising with the light, v. 15. The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, v. 16. In the dark they dig through houses, v. 17. For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death;
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
The general subject of this chapter is the prosperity of the wicked, whose proceedings and their results are traced out in detail (Job 24:2-24). A single note of perplexity (Job 24:1) forms a sufficient introduction; and a single note of challenge a sufficient epilogue (Job 24:25).
Job 24:1
Why, seeing times are not hidden from the almighty. By “times” seem to be meant God’s special periods of exhibiting himself in action as the moral Governor of the world, vindicating the righteous, and taking vengeance upon sinners. Such “times” are frequently spoken of in the prophetical Scriptures as “days of the Lord” (see Isa 2:12; Isa 3:18; Isa 4:1; Isa 13:6, Isa 13:9; Joe 1:15; Joe 2:1, Joe 2:11; Oba 1:15; Zep 1:7, Zep 1:14, etc.). They are, of course, “not hidden” from him, seeing that it is he who determines on them beforehand, and, when their fixed date is come, makes them special “days,” or “times,” different from all others. Do they who know him not see his days? i.e. why are even they, who know and serve God, kept in the dark as to these “times,” so that they do not foresee them or know when they are coming? This is to Job a great perplexity.
Job 24:2
Some remove the landmarks. (On this form of wickedness, see Deu 19:14; Deu 27:17; Pro 22:28; Pro 23:10; Hos 5:10.) Where neighbouring properties are not divided by fences of any kind, as in the East generally, the only way of distinguishing between one man’s land and another’s is by termini, or “landmarks,” which are generally low stone metes or bourns, placed at intervals on the boundary-line. An easy form of robbery was to displace these bourns, putting them further back on one’s neighbour’s land. They violently take away flocks. Others openly drive off their neighbours’ flocks from their pastures, mix them with their own flocks, and say that they are theirs (comp. Job 1:15-17). And feed thereof; rather, and feed them; i.e. pasture them.
Job 24:3
They drive away the ass of the fatherless. This was another form of oppression. “Whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed?” says Samuel, on laying down his judgeship (1Sa 12:3). The “fatherless” were particularly liable to such ill treatment, seeing that they had lost their natural protector. They take the widow’s ox for a pledge. It may be true that this was nowhere a legal offence, not even among the Hebrews (Lee); but it was a real act of oppression, and forms a fitting counterpart to the injury done to the orphan. (On the natural tendency of selfish men to bear hard on these two classes, see Exo 22:22; Deu 24:17; Deu 27:19; Psa 94:6; Isa 1:23; Isa 10:2; Jer 5:28; Zec 7:10.)
Job 24:4
They turn the needy out of the way. Either “they force poor men to turn out of the road when they are using it, and wait till they have passed” (compare the recent practice of the Japanese daimios), or “they make the highways so dangerous with their violence that they compel the poor and needy to seek byways for safety” (Jdg 5:6). The second hemistich favours the latter interpretation. The poor of the earth (or, the meek of the earth) hide themselves together. In the East there have always been superior and subject races, as well as proud nobles and down-trodden men of the same race. It is not clear of which of these two Job speaks. The former were often hunted out of all the desirable lands, and forced to fly to rooks and caves and holes in the ground, whence they were known as “Troglodytes.” The latter, less frequently, handed together, and withdrew to remote and sequestered spots, where they might hope to live unmolested by their oppressors (Heb 11:38).
Job 24:5
Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work. Plundering bands of wicked marauders scour the desert, like troops of wild asses, going forth early to their work, and late taking restrising betimes for a prey, and generally finding it, since the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children. They are sure to find some plunder or other ere the day is over.
Job 24:6
They reap every one his corn in the field. When they have scoured the desert, the marauders approach the cultivated ground bordering on it, and thence carry off, each of them. a quantity of “fodder,” or “provender” (Revised Version), for the sustentation of their horses. And they gather the vintage of the wicked; rather, as in the margin, and the wicked gather the vintage. (So Rosenmuller and Professor Lee.) Sometimes they burst into the vineyards, and rob them, carrying off the ripe grapes.
Job 24:7
They cause the naked to lodge without clothing; rather, they lie all night naked, without clothing. The marauders are still the subject of the narrative. When engaged in their raids, they endure to pass the night without clothing, as the Bedouins are said to do to this day, so that they have no covering in the cold. They are so bent upon plunder that they do not mind these inconveniences.
Job 24:8
They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter. Further unpleasant consequences of marauding, hut endured without complaint by the wild robber-tribes.
Job 24:9
They pluck the fatherless from the breast. Other oppressors, not of the marauding class, but dwellers in towns (Job 24:12), are so cruel that they tear the unweaned child of the debtor from the mother’s breast, as satisfaction for a debt, and carry him off into slavery. And take a pledge of the poor; literally, take in pledge that which is on the poorin other words, their clothing. They will not lend to them on any other terms, and so force them to part with their garments, and go about naked. Even Hebrew creditors seem to have done this (Exo 22:26; Deu 24:12, Deu 24:13); and the Mosaic Law did not forbid the practice, but only required the creditor to let the debtor have his garment at night, that he might sleep in it (Exo 22:27; Deu 24:13).
Job 24:10
They cause him to go naked without clothing; rather, they go naked without clothing. The effects of the oppression on its victims are now traced. First of all, the poor man, whose only wrap or cloak has been taken in pledge, is com-polled to go naked, or almost naked, both day and night, exposed alike to extremes of heat and cold. Secondly, he is compelled to reap and bind and carry home the sheaves of his oppressor, while he himself is half famished with hunger. The second clause of the verse is wrongly translated in the Authorized Version, where we read, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry; the real meaning being, “and they who are an hungered, carry the sheaves” (compare the Revised Version).
Job 24:11
Which make oil within their walls, and tread their wine-presses, and suffer thirst. In the third place, the same unfortunates are employed in the homesteads of their oppressors to express oil from the olives and wine from the rich clusters of grapes, while they themselves are tormented with unceasing thirst.
Job 24:12
Men groan from out of the city. It is not only in the wild tracts bordering on the desert (Job 24:5-8), or on the large farms of rich landholders (Job 24:9-11), that oppression takes place. Men’s groans are heard also “from the city,” and in the midst of the city, where murder, robbery, burglary, adultery, and other crimes of the deepest dye abound. Then the soul of the wounded crieth out. In appeals to God for help, or in inarticulate cries, the wounded spirit of the oppressed and injured vents itself. Yet God layeth not folly to them. Yet God seems to take no notice. He gives no sign of disapproval, but allows the oppressors to go on in their foolish courses unchecked.
Job 24:13
They are of those who rebel against the light. These city oppressors go beyond the others in entirely rejecting the light of reason, conscience, and law. They threw off every restraint. The “light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” is nothing to them. They know not the ways thereof. They will not know, will not have anything to do with, the law of moral restraintmuch less will they abide in the paths thereof; i.e. acknowledge and be guided by such restraints continually. On the contrary,
Job 24:14
The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy. The murderer rises at the first glimpse of dawnthe time when mast men sleep most soundly. He cannot go about his wicked business in complete darkness. He has not the courage to attack the great and powerful, who might be well armed and have retainers to defend them, but enters the houses of a comparatively poor class, in which he is less afraid to risk himself. Here, in the night he is as a thief. He has not come into the house simply for murder. Theft is his main object. He will not take life unless he is resisted or discovered, and so, in a certain sense, driven to it.
Job 24:15
The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me. There is an analogy between moral and physical light, and between moral and physical darkness. The class of men here spoken of (Job 24:14-16), who have rebelled against moral light (Job 24:13), and refused its ways, and rejected its paths, are no great lovers of physical light. Their deeds of darkness are only suited to be done in the dark, and they wait for the evening twilight or the dusk of dawn to engage in them. And he disguiseth his face. As a further precaution against discovery, the adulterer disguiseth, or covereth up, his face. The same is often done by thieves and murderers.
Job 24:16
In the dark they dig through houses. In ancient times, burglary commonly took this form. Windows were few, and high up in the walls; doors were strongly fastened with bolts and bars. But the walls, being of clay, or rubble, or sun-dried brick, were weak and easily penetrable. This was especially the ease with party walls; and if burglars entered an unoccupied house, nothing was easier than to break through the slight partition which separated it from the house next door. The Greek word for “burglar” is ‘” he who digs through a wall.” Which they had marked for themselves in the daytime; rather, they shut themselves up in the daytime; literally, they seal themselves up; the meaning being that they carefully keep themselves close. Professor Lee, however, defends the Authorized Version. They know not the light; i.e. they avoid it, keep away from it, will have nothing to do with it.
Job 24:17
For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death. They hate the morning light. It is associated in their minds with the idea of detection; for when it breaks in upon them unexpectedly in the midst of their ill deeds, detection commonly follows; and detection is a true “shadow of death,” for it commonly means the gallows. If one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death; rather, for they know the terrors of the shadow of death (see the Revised Version). It is a familiar experience to them; as, whenever crime is severely punished, it is to the criminal class generally.
Job 24:18
He is swift as the waters. “Locus obscurissimus” (Schulteus). Scarcely any two commentators agree even as to the subject on which Job proceeds to speak. Some regard him as giving his own judgment on the ultimate fate of the wicked; others, as anticipating what his opponents will say on the point. One recent expositor takes the passage as referring to the efforts made by the malefactors of verses 14-16 to escape from justice, and to the discredit and difficulty in which they involve themselves. Another suggests that Job here calls attention to a fresh class of oppressors, viz. water-thieves (see Strabo, Job 16:18), who, starting in light boats from some island in a lake or river, plundered the neighbouring lands, making the portions of the landholders worthless, and causing them to neglect the cultivation, even of their vineyards. If we accept this view, the proper translation of the present verse will be, Swift is he (i.e. the water-thief) upon the face of the waters: then is the portion of them who dwell in the land worthless; no one turneth his face toward his vine. yards.
Job 24:19
Drought and heat consume the snow waters; so doth the grave those which have sinned. This rendering is further confirmed by the next verse. Accepting it, we must suppose Job to pass at this point to the consideration of the ultimate end of the wicked, though in verse 21 he returns to the consideration of their ill doings. The heat and drought of summer, he says, consume and dry up all the water which comes from the melting of the winter’s snows. So does Shoel, or the grave, absorb, and as it were consume, the wicked.
Job 24:20
The womb shall forget him: Some regard this as equivalent to “Earth shall forget him;” but most suppose “the womb” to mean “his own mother.” The worm shall feed sweetly on him (comp. Job 17:14). He shall be no more remembered. Oblivion shall fall upon him and his doings. And wickedness shall be broken as a tree. As a strong wind suddenly snaps off a tree at the root, so wickedness, in the person of the wicked manthe abstract for the concreteshall be overtaken by death, and perish in a moment (comp. Job 24:24).
Job 24:21
He evil entreateth the barren that beareth not. Oppressors of another class are perhaps here spoken of, or perhaps there is a mere return to the idea with which Job’s enumeration opened (verse 3), which was the oppression of the weaker and more defenceless classes. As barrenness in women was considered the greatest possible misfortune (1Sa 1:5-8; 1Sa 3:1-10), so oppressing one that was barren indicated extreme cruelty. And doeth not good to the widow; i.e. neglects to vindicate her causean admitted part of man’s duty (see Job 22:9; Job 29:13; Job 31:16).
Job 24:22
He draweth also the mighty with his power; i.e. he draws to his side, and makes his helpers, those who are mighty, attracting them or compelling them to join him by the power which he already has. He riseth up, and no man is sure of life. This is also the translation of the Revised Version. Some commentators, however, prefer to render, “He riseth up, when he has despaired of life; “i.e. the wicked man, when he has been brought into trouble, either sickness or danger of death at the hands of Justice, to men’s surprise, “riseth up”is delivered from the danger, and recovers his prosperity.
Job 24:23
Though it be given him to be in safety, whereon he resteth; rather, he (i.e. God) granteth him to be in security‘ and thereon he resteth; i.e. God allows the escape of the wicked man from his trouble, and lets him live on, safe and secure, and the man himself rests on the security thus afforded him, quite contented with it. Yet his eyes are upon their ways. God’s eyes are still upon the ways of the wicked: they are, or seem to be, the objects of a special providential care.
Job 24:24
They are exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low; rather, they are exalted: after a little while they are gone‘ they are brought low. Job has to admit that death comes upon wicked men at last; but he minimizes the terrors of their death, and exaggerates its alleviations. First, it comes on them when they have risen to eminence, have gained themselves a reputation, and “are exalted.” Next, it is sudden and painless, preceded by no long, lingering illness, but just a sinking into non-existence; a tranquil passing away. Thirdly, it is at a ripe age, when they have reached the full term of human life, and are as ears of corn ripe for the harvest. Further, it is the common fate: They are taken out of the way as all other (comp. Job 9:22; Job 21:13), and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn. We may gather from this expression that the reaping in the land of Uz was conducted in Job’s time much in the same way as it was in Egypt under the early Pharaohs, viz. by cutting the stalk with a sharp sickle almost immediately below the ear, and collecting the ears in baskets.
Job 24:25
And if it be not so now; i.e. “if these things be not as I say.” Who will make me a liar? Which of you will stand forth and disprove them, and so “make me a liar “? And make my speech nothing worth? Show, i.e.‘ my whole discourse to be valueless. This bold challenge no one attempts to take up.
HOMILETICS
Job 24:1-12
Job to Eliphaz: 4. An answer wanted to a great question’
I. AS IMPORTANT PROPOSITION STATED. That the Almighty does not call wicked men before his tribunal on earth. “Why are not times,” i.e. of reckoning or punishment, “reserved,” or kept in store, “by the Almighty, and why do they who know him see not his days?” i.e. his doomsdays, or days of judicial visitation on the wicked (verse 1).
1. A caution. The language does not imply either that there should not be, or that there do not exist, such times of reckoning with the ungodly, and indeed with all men. On the contrary, it tacitly assumes that God both ought to have, and in point of fact does have, days of retribution which are appropriately described as “his.” That men ought to be judged for their characters and lives, the moral instincts of humanity proclaim; that men will be arraigned before Shaddai’s impartial tribunal, is explicitly asserted in Scripture (Job 21:30; Job 34:11; Ecc 12:14; Psa 98:9; Dan 7:10; Mat 25:32; 2Co 5:10; 2Ti 4:1; Heb 9:27).
2. An explanation. What the language asserts is that such court-days are not kept by the Almighty on earth, or at least that his people do not see them; in other words, that the godlessness of men is permitted to stalk forth on earth unchallenged and unavenged, without let or hindrance, pretty much as if there were no such tribunal in existence. And this fact, which Job so strenuously affirms, in addition to having been observed by Asaph (Psa 73:5), David (Psa 1:1-6 :21), the Preacher (Ecc 8:11), Jer 12:1, Hab 1:15, Hab 1:16, and others, is likewise recognized in Scripture generally as correct.
II. A CONVINCING DEMONSTRATION OFFERED. That the Almighty does not hold a regular assize on earth established by two patent facts.
1. The most execrable wickedness is suffered to rage without either punishment or restraint. The special form of ungodliness depicted is that of ruthless oppression of the helpless and defenceless, exemplified in such crimes as:
(1) Secret fraud. “They,” i.e. the tyrannical oppressors of the aborigines of the soil, “remove the landmarks,” shift the stones or stakes which mark the boundary-line between the poor man’s plot and the rich man’s farm, so as to diminish the one and increase the otheran act of impiety denounced in the Law of Moses as worthy of, and certain to be punished by, the curse of God (Deu 19:14; Deu 27:17), a crime practised in the days of Solomon (Pro 22:28; Pro 23:10) and of Hos 5:10, a form of wickedness not unknown to modern society. Every attempt by covert fraudulence to augment one’s own estate at the expense of a neighbour’s, whether that neighbour be poor or rich, is equivalent to a removing of the landmark between meum and tuum, and as such incurs the Divine displeasure. If one thing is more saddening than the prevalence of indirect and minute spoliation amongst all ranks and classes, it is that good men should not be able to sea that theft is still theft, although practised in infinitesimal proportions and by underhand contrivances, and that even wicked men should not be deterred from such nefarious actions by a recollection of God’s anathemas against the thief.
(2) Barefaced robbery. “They violently take away flocks and feed them” (Hos 5:2), not taking the trouble to dispose of the stolen sheep by slaughter or sale, but openly and coolly retaining them amongst their own, as the Sabeans had done with Job’s oxen (Job 1:14)an aggravation of their crime that they were so shameless and audacious in its commission; but they who could brave God’s curse in order to remove a landmark would not likely shrink from enduring man’s scorn in order to steal a flock. Sin inevitably tends to sear the conscience and to petrify the feelings.
(3) Pitiless exaction. “They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow’s ox for a pledge” (verse 3). Besides being out of all proportion, and therefore unjust, to carry off an ass or an ox in payment of a trifling loan or debt, it was unspeakably heartless to proceed to such extremity against those whose friendless condition should have drawn forth sympathy and succour. It was also a clear violation of the Divine Law to appropriate what was so indispensable to the subsistence of an orphan as the one ass wherewith he laboured, or so needful for the widow as the ox which ploughed her plot of ground. For similar reasons the Mosaic Law forbade the taking in pledge of a widow’s raiment (Deu 24:17), and much more, it may be argued, of a widow’s yoke ox, or of an orphan’s ass (Exo 22:22). The nether or the upper millstone also, for a like cause, was an illegal pledge (Deu 24:6).
(4) Violent oppression. “They turn the needy out of the way” (verse 4), thrusting them out of their accustomed paths and pursuits, compelling them through fear to abandon the highways and travel through trackless regions, ejecting them by force from their wonted habitations and ancient possessions (cf. Job 22:8, homiletics).
(5) Merciless subjugation. “They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor” (verse 9). So pitiless are these inhuman monsters, that they distrain not the widow’s ox merely, but her infant child as well, plucking it from her bosom, and carrying it off to be reared in miserable servitude; yea, if the second clause may be added to the first, after robbing the broken-hearted mother of her babe, stripping her of her raiment, and turning her forth naked and trembling to find food and clothing as best she may. It is doubtful if any American Legree or modern slave-driver ever eclipsed these ancient child-stealers in relentless barbarity.
2. The most extreme misery is allowed to go unnoticed and unrelieved. In three affecting pictures, according to one view of the poet’s meaning, he sketches the calamitous fate of the unhappy victims of those remorseless destroyers. The first (verses 5-8) depicts the melancholy fortunes of the poor of the land (perhaps the aboriginal inhabitants), who being cast forth from their ancient possessions are obliged to “hide themselves together” (verse 4), or to slink away out of sight, disappearing, as inferior races have since done, because unable to stand before the violence of their invaders.
(1) Leading a gregarious and wandering life, like wild asses in the desert, like the vagrant gipsies of modern times, rising up early and going forth in search of food with an appetite as keen as if they were hunting prey, with infinite labour extracting a scanty subsistence for themselves and children from the innutritious roots and herbs of the inhospitable steppe.
(2) Enraging in the lowest forms of menial service, being obliged to hire themselves out as day labourers, and the only work available for them being the cutting of fodder for the rich man’s cattlenot the better sorts of grain, lest they should be tempted to pluck and eat; or the gleaning of the late ripening grapes of the rich man’s vineyardnot the earliest and best, for fear they should seek to quench their thirst by devouring the luscious fruit.
(3) Reduced to the saddest state of destitution, being without clothes, so that they must pass the night in a stripped and naked condition, exposed to the “frequent and continuous storms that visit the mountains,” and without homes, so that “they embrace the rock for want of a shelter.” The second picture (verses 10, 11) is, if possible, more excruciatingly painful in the aspect of wretchedness it presents. It recites the evil hap of those widows’ children who have been taken for their mothers’ debt, or of the poorer section of the conquering clan themselves who in turn have become victims of the haughty tyrants, and have been reduced to a condition little short of abject slavery.
(1) Utter penury. In consequence of the oppressive exactions of their masters, they are compelled to part with the last stitch of clothing, and to slink away in almost entire nudity like a gang of slaves driven to the market or the cotton-field.
(2) Unrequited toil. Hungry, they must not pluck a handful of ears from their overseer’s cornfield, a privilege not denied to the brute beasts beside them (Deu 25:4). Thirsty, they dare not moisten their parched tongues with the must running from the presses as they squeeze but the oil and tread down the grapes. The abominable wickedness of exacting labour without remuneration (and that also adequate), as is done in slavery, is severely reprehended in Scripture (Le Job 19:13; Deu 24:14, Deu 24:15; Jer 22:13; Jas 5:4). The third picture (verse 12) alludes to the miseries of a densely populated city, where
(1) oppression reigns as fierce and intolerable as exists in the country, causing men to groan in anguisha description not exclusively applicable to an ancient Arabian town suddenly invaded by hordes of freebooters, but finding also too faithful realization in the great cities and large centres of population belonging to the nineteenth Christian century, in which the same spectacle is still seen, of the strong trampling on the weak, the rich on the poor, the lordly and tyrannical on the plebeian and servile; and where
(2) strife rages, leading not unfrequently to bloodshed and murder, in which the soul of the wounded mournsa state of things as often seen today as it was some five or six thousand years ago, nothing being so characteristic of the present times as just the internecine warfare existing between the various classes of society, and leading as a natural result to a prolific development of crimes against the person and estate. And all this sweltering abomination, this moral putridity, social disorder, and civil corruption which infests both town and country, the Almighty appears to be as indifferent to as he was in the days of Job (Psa 1:1-6 :21).
III. AN URGENT QUESTION ASKED. Why does not God call wicked men to account?
1. Not for want of power. Otherwise he would not be Shaddai, the Almighty, the all-powerful and all-sufficient Deity, whose ability to perform his counsel Job has just commented on (Job 23:13).
2. Not for lack of knowledge. Job’s atheistical contemporaries supposed that mundane affairs were concealed from the gaze of him who walked upon the circuit of the heavens, and whose feet were wrapped about with clouds (Job 22:13); but Job and his friends alike admitted that times, i.e. at any rate the main events and circumstances of terrestrial history, were not hidden from Shaddai’s omniscient glance (verse 1, Authorized Version).
3. Not for want of right. Both parties in the present controversy recognize that such appalling wickedness should not be suffered to go for ever unchallenged and unpunished, that such detestable criminals as above described ought to be arrested and brought before the tribunal of Heaven. Nay, on the theory of the friends, these workers of iniquity ought at once to be called to account. Yet notoriously, says Job, they are not. Hence it can only be:
4. For lack of will. It is not God’s intention to hold a circuit court here on earth, and try men for their misdeeds. In other words, the Divine government is not, so far as this world is concerned, as the friends contended, strictly retributive.
Learn:
1. The impunity of sinners on earth is no proof that they shall enjoy like impunity hereafter.
2. That God’s people do not now discern his judgment throne is no argument that such a throne does not exist.
3. Little faults are as really sins, and as certain to be punished, as great offences.
4. Criminals who start with stealthy and minute acts of transgression are in danger of proceeding to large as well as open works of wickedness.
5. “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.”
6. Mighty despots may deprive the poor of their estates by either fair means or foul; but God regards the deed as spoliation and robbery.
7. It is a wiser policy to prevent pauperism from being developed in a state than to provide for it after it has been developed.
8. Town and country are much the same in their moral characteristics.
9. It is a mistake to infer from God’s silence that he neither sees nor cares for the wickedness and misery of man.
Job 24:8
A threefold religious emblem; of the shelter of the rock.
I. AN EMBLEM OF THE SINNER‘S MISERABLE CONDITION.
1. Exposed to a storm. Like the unhappy victims of tyrannical oppression, men, in their unconverted state, are liable to be overtaken by the tempest of God’s righteous wrath and indignation against sin (Psa 11:6; Rom 1:18; Col 3:6; 1Th 1:10; Rev 6:16, Rev 6:17), which will not assail the body merely, but destroy both soul and body in hell (Luk 12:5), and that for ever.
2. Destitute of shelter. Like the houseless and homeless wanderers among the mountains, unpardoned souls are without a refuge to which they can betake themselves in the day of their calamity. Driven forth from the place of safety in which they originally stood, they have now “no covering in the cold,” no garment of righteousness in which they can wrap their trembling spirits. Nor can they by any wisdom, wealth, or labour of their own construct or discover for themselves a habitation and defence against the storm.
II. AN EMBLEM OF THE GREAT SALVATION OFFERED IN THE GOSPEL. As the shivering outcasts crept into the rocky caves on the mountain-side, so Christ has been set forth as a Rock and a Hiding-place (Isa 32:2).
1. Accessible by all; the approach to him being hindered by no formidable barriers, and no stupendous effort being required to reach his side (Rom 10:6), nothing beyond a simple exercise of faith which is within the ability of even a child.
2. Sufficient for all; there being room enough in Christ for all who come to him in faith (Luk 14:22), yea, for the entire world of mankind (Isa 45:22; Joh 3:16), if only they sincerely come to him; and perfect safety and protection for all who gain its shelter, complete defence against the charges of the Law, the accusations of conscience, the penalties of sin, the terrors of death, and of the wrath to come (Rom 5:1).
3. Free to all; every one who seeks his presence and assistance being accorded a welcome, without money and without price.
“All the fitness he requireth
Is to feel our need of him.”
III. AN EMBLEM OF THE ACT OF SAVING FAITH. As the miserable victims of the strong man’s oppression embraced the rock for a shelter, so must needy sinners embrace Christ the Rock.
1. With personal application; Christ being of no more use to a sinner without individual appropriation than the mountain rock would have been to those who did not cling to it. Faith is the hand that lays hold of and embraces Christ as he is exhibited in the gospel.
2. With fervent gratitude; giving thanks to God for his abundant mercy in providing such a shelter for the soul, as no doubt the poor creatures whom the mountain-storms drenched were grateful for even the protection of a cave.
3. With immediate action; allowing no delay to prevent the soul from fleeing from the storm of impending wrath to the hope set before it in the gospel.
Job 24:13-25
Job to Eliphaz: 5. Ancient rebels against the light.
I. THEIR BLACK CHARACTER.
1. They are hostile to the light. The light alluded to is the light of day. The wicked persons spoken of regard that light with aversion, as being unfavourable to the special forms of ungodliness they delight to practise. Distinguished from the previously mentioned sinners who transact their nefarious deeds openly and unblushingly beneath the clear firmament of heaven, these night-birds may be taken, in their general characteristics at least, as representatives of those evil-doers whom Christ designates (Joh 3:20) haters of the light. Light is a frequent biblical symbol for Divine truth (Pro 6:23; Psa 119:105; Isa 2:5), and in particular for the gospel (Mat 4:16; Luk 2:32; Joh 12:36; Eph 5:8). Hence the unbelieving and therefore unconverted wicked heart naturally looks upon the light of God’s Law and of Christ’s gospel with repugnance (Rom 8:7), and for the same reason, that the light condemns their works.
2. They know not the ways of the light. They have no familiarity with such modes of living as men practise in open day. The ordinary avocations of law-abiding citizens possess for them no interest and yield to them no enjoyment; in which respect again they fitly typify ungodly men in general, who neither know nor care for the ways of holiness and truth. The way of the wicked is a way of darkness (Pro 4:19; Rom 13:12), of unbelief (Heb 3:12), of disobedience (Rom 8:7), of folly (Pro 12:15), of sorrow (Pro 13:15), a way that is displeasing to God (Pro 15:9), and that leadeth unto death (Mat 7:13; Rom 6:23). The way of truth (Psa 119:30), of understanding (Isa 40:14), of holiness (Isa 35:8), of peace (Isa 59:8; Rom 3:17), of life (Mat 7:14), they do not keep, love, or know.
3. They shun the paths of the light. They remove themselves and their nefarious practices as far as possible from the light, lest they should be seen of men. Even so evil workers come not to the light lest their deeds should be reproved (Joh 3:20). Honest men fear not to stand in the sun. Nor do children of the light require to wrap themselves in cloaks of darkness. But because God’s light (of the Law and the gospel) has a singular power of discovering men’s wickedness to themselves and others (Eph 5:13), the children of darkness avoid the light.
II. THEIR DARK DEEDS. The poet sketches portraits of three of these ancient rebels against the light.
1. The murderer; whose villainies are described by a threefold characteristic.
(1) The time of their perpetration”at the dawn,” i.e. just before the breaking forth of the morning light, or while it is yet dark, that hour being selected for
(a) its adaptation to the works about to be performed, works of darkness (Rom 13:12), such as robbery and murder, which cannot bear the light, and
(b) the facilities it affords for finding subjects on which to operate.
(2) The victims of their perpetration”the poor and needy,” who by reason of penury are obliged at that early hour to be afoot, probably on the road to their daily tasks. Murder, in itself an atrocious crime, is immensely aggravated when, for the petty spoil which can thereby be obtained, it is committed against the indigent and feeble.
(3) The manner of their perpetrationby sudden ambush. “At dawn the manslayer riseth up,” i.e. out of his concealment, “and killeth the poor and the needy;” another aggravation of his wickedness. The language may also indicate the alacrity and earnestness with which this son of darkness, this child of the devil, sets about his unhallowed work; in which respect his conduct may administer rebuke to the children of light.
2. The adulterer; who also is possessed of the infernal sagacity to select the season most appropriate, and the manner most effective, for accomplishing his diabolic purpose. Not at early dawn, but with the falling of the evening twilight, he sallies forth towards his neighbour’s harem, saying, “No eye shall see me;” to render detection impossible, putting a mask upon his face, forgetting that masks hide from men, but not from God, who can see as well in darkness as in light. But most criminals and sinners omit to reckon with the invisible Spectator of their abominations. Notoriously so did Cain (Gen 4:10), David (2Sa 11:4), Ananias and Sapphira (Act 5:2). Yet, again, from even a teacher so unworthy as this violator of marriage sanctities, God’s people may derive a lesson to transact their deeds of light with wisdom and efficiency.
3. The burglar; who, already referred to as the highwayman of the morning dawn (verse 14), is reintroduced as the midnight housebreaker who, with pick and spade (the modern thief using crowbar and chisel, skeleton keys, etc.), digs beneath the mud walls of rich men’s abodes, marked by him during day (verses 16, 17). The more probable translation, however, sets forth the housebreaker’s horror of the light: “In the daytime they shut themselves up,” because “they know not,” i.e. hate, “the light:” and “to them together the morning is as the shadow of death,” i.e. through fear of discovery; “for they are acquainted with,” and therefore are greatly afraid of, “the terrors of the shadow of death.”
III. THEIR TERRESTRIAL REWARDS. The treatment of neither of the two classes described in the present chapter is strictly retributive.
1. The fate of the petty criminals; i.e. of the murderer, the adulterer, the thief, and all included in the category of rebels against the light. According to Eliphaz, these creatures of the darkness should be overtaken with calamities proportioned to their crimes; but, according to Job, the contrary is the casethey are
(1) prosperous in life, gliding down the stream and current of time like a light skiff (verse 18), experiencing no curse upon their heritages while they live; and
(2) honoured in death, by being vouchsafed
(a) a quick and easy disappearance from the earth, like the passing away of a light substance upon the face of the waters (cf. Job 9:26), instead of struggling towards the grave through protracted and painful suffering, or like the melting of snow before the scorching heats of summer (verse 19), going down into Sheol suddenly as in a moment (Job 21:13); and
(b) a complete escape from the just penalties of their crimes, the curse not descending upon their heritages until they themselves have departed from the scene (verse 18), and though forgotten by the very mothers that bore them because of their wickedness, yet not compelled to eat the bitter fruits of their transgression, since by death their iniquity has been broken off like a tree, i.e. before it has had time to yield its appropriate results.
2. The fate of the rapacious despots; i.e. of those sketched in the preceding section (verses 2-12), who are here identified as the oppressors of barren and widowed women (verse 21). They, too, should be arrested by visible judgments; but altogether different, according to Job, is their lot.
(1) They are preserved alive by that very hand which should rather slay them (verse 22). So were God to deal with any sinners on earth according to their iniquities they would instantly be cut down (Psa 130:3). But God magnifies his grace and evinces his long-suffering towards sinful men by upholding in existence those who bid defiance to every danger, and even to God himself, who are not only insensible to all Divine impulses, but flagrant violators of all Divine laws.
(2) They are raised up from sickness at the moment when they seem to be about to die (verse 22). The mercy God’s singer guarantees to the humble saint that considereth the poor (Psa 41:1), and Christ’s servant promises to the believing Christian (Jas 5:15), is extended to the poor man’s oppressor, and the supreme God’s denieranother marvel of grace!
(3) They are kept in security instead of living in constant terror (verse 23). Were God not to moderate the fears of good men, much more therefore of bad men, their lives would be intolerable. But God’s special providence watches over villains as well as over virtuous people, keeping both from danger, fear, and death, hoping thereby to lead the former to repentance, and seeking to induce the latter to confide in his grace.
(4) They are exalted for a season in conscious prosperity instead of being humbled and cast down (verse 24)an additional proof of God’s kindness towards them. And
(5) when the end comes they only share in the common lot, being taken out of the way like all other men.
Learn:
1. The unnatural wickedness of those who despise God’s mercieseven his common gifts of providence, but much more his grandest gift of grace.
2. It is an unmistakable evidence of depravity when a man loves the darkness rather than the light.
3. The present-day forms of wickedness are of extreme antiquity, some of them, such as murder, being nearly as old as the Fall.
4. The soul that hates the light has the seed-corn in his heart out of which the greatest crimes may be developed.
5. The truest security a man can have that he shall never perpetrate such wickedness as murder, adultery, etc; is to walk in the light.
6. The destruction of the most powerful sinner that walks the earth is a work of perfect ease to God.
7. A man’s triumph or superiority over his fellows terminates with the grave.
8. That wickedness must be great which causes a mother to forget her child.
9. That mercy must be great which continues when human love in its highest form is exhausted.
10. Death may seem to remove the curse from the sinner, but in reality it only conducts the sinner to the curse.
11. God’s goodness and mercy may follow a sinner to the grave’s mouth; there is no evidence that it can pursue him further.
12. It is appointed unto all men once to die.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Job 24:1-12
Examples of God’s incomprehensible dealings.
I. DEEDS OF VIOLENCE AND FRAUD. (Job 24:1-4.) “Why are not times laid up,” i.e. reserved, determined by the Almighty, “and why do those who know him (i.e. his friends) not see his days?”the days when he arises to judgment, days of revelation, days of the Son of man (Eze 30:3; Luk 17:22). Then comes a series of acts of violence, oppression, persecution, permitted by God the removal of landmarks (Deu 19:14; Deu 27:17; Pro 22:28; Pro 23:10); the plunder of herds (Job 20:19); the taking of the property of the helpless in pledge (Exo 22:26; Deu 24:6); the thrusting of the poor from the way into pathless spots, so that the miserable of the land are compelled to hide themselves from the intolerable oppression.
II. THE MISERY OF THE PERSECUTED. (Job 24:5-8) Job 24:5 is an apt description of the beggarly vagabond way of life of these Troglodytes, the types of the present Hottentots or Bushmen in South Africa: “As wild asses in the desert they go forth in their daily work, looking out for booty; the steppe gives them food for their children. On the field they reap the fodder of the cattle, and glean the vineyard of the wicked,” thievishly not labouring in his service. Naked, cold, shelterless, exposed to the rain amidst the mountains, they cower for shelter among the rocks (verses- 7, 8).
III. FURTHER DESCRIPTIONS OF TYRANNY. (Job 24:9-12.) The orphan is torn from the mother’s breast by cruel creditors, who intend to repay themselves by bringing up the child as a slave. The property of the poor is seized in pledge (comp. Amo 2:8; Mic 2:9). Then follows another picture of the victims of oppression, not now as wanderers of the steppe, but as the wretched denizens of inhabited cities (Job 24:10-12). In nakedness and hunger, they carry sheaves for the supply of the rich man’s table, while they themselves are starving. And thus the cry of those whose wages have been kept back by fraud goes up to Heaven (Deu 25:4; 1Ti 5:18; Jas 5:4). We have a picture of ancient labour in the olive- and vine-growing East. While they press the olive or tread the wine-press they suffer cruelly from thirst. The groans of dying men fill the air, “and yet God never speaks a word!” “He heeds not the folly” with which these impious tyrants disregard and trample upon the moral order.J.
Job 24:13-25
Pictures of secret end unpunished evil-doers.
I. THE MURDERER AND THE ADULTERER. (Job 24:13-17.) A class of the wicked different from the foregoing is now placed before us; rebels, revolters against the light, who refuse to know anything of the ways of light, and to abide in its paths. These are the “children of darkness,” so emphatically contrasted in the New Testament with the “children of light” (Rom 13:12; Eph 5:8, etc.; 1Th 5:5). Before the morning breaks, the murderer rises, to strike down the poor and needy, and at night he carries on the trade of the thief. The adulterer waits for the dusk, and veils his face (Pro 7:9). In the darkness houses are broken into by men who have shut themselves up during the daymen who have no affinity with the light, as the description repeats (Job 24:16). To these malefactors the dense darkness is their morning; for then, when others sleep from daily toil, their vile work and trade begin, “because they know the terrors of the gloomy darkness’ (Job 24:17), being as. familiar with them as others are with the bright daytime. The joyous consciousness, the cheerful spirits of the children of the light, are contrasted with the fear, the anxiety, the incessant terrors of the children of darkness. Conscience, that makes cowards of all, will not suffer the most hardened to escape. “Certain dregs of conscience’ will remain even in the most imbruted; the murderer will start at the shadow of a falling leaf. When the light that is within a man has become darkness, the very blessed day itself is turned to night. In their revolt from God, the eternal Light, they carry about night in their bosom, and all their terrors are present to them in the brightness of the day (Mat 6:23; Joh 11:10).
II. JUDGMENT ON THESE EVIL–DOERS; ITS CERTAINTY. (Job 24:18-21.) They pass away swiftly as upon some gliding flood (Job 9:26; Hos 10:7). His portion in the land being cursedeither by men or by God, or by boththe wicked man no more bends his steps to his vineyard and his other beloved possessions. Thena powerful comparisonas dryness and heat carry away the short snows of winter, so the sinner evaporates as it were into hell (Psa 49:14; Psa 21:9). Forgotten by a mother’s womb! Deserted even of the most tenacious affections the human heart can know, worms make a dainty repast upon his flesh. He is like a blasted tree upon the heath, or a felled trunk in the forest (Job 19:10; Ecc 11:3; Dan 4:10). For he was rotten at the core; the heart of kindly affections was eaten away; he had plundered the childless and dealt cruelly with the widow.
III. JUDGMENT, THOUGH CERTAIN, IS DELAYED. (Job 24:22-24.) “God maintains the tyrant for a long time by his power,” does not execute judgment at once (Isa 13:22; Psa 36:11; Psa 85:6). Although the oppressor is sometimes in despair of life, yet he rises up and flourishes again. God grants him safety, and he is supported, and God’s eyes are upon his ways to protect and to bless. But it is for a little while only that this recovery and this security lastthen they vanish (Gen 5:24). Oppressors are bowed down, perish, pass away like ears of corn.
Conclusion of Job’s address. “If it should not be so, who will punish me for lies, and make my speech as nought?” It is a triumphant expression of his superiority, maintained in these lessons of experience on the incomparable dealings of God in the destinies of men. Because sin seems unpunished, it is not forgotten. Retribution is certain, though it may be delayed. The “treacherous calm” is more to be dreaded than the “tempests overhead.” The greater the forbearance and the long-suffering shown by God towards the wicked, the more severe their punishment in the end.J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN
Job 24:1-22
Apparent anomalies in the Divine judgment.
Job again points to the anomalous conditions of human lifegoodness, which has its approval in every breast, and on which, by universal consent of belief, a Divine blessing rests, is nevertheless often overcast with the shadow of calamity; and, on the other hand, evil-doing, which merits only judgment, affliction, and correction, is often found to prosper. To it outward events seem to be favourable. Men sin without let or hindrance. Apparently, “God layeth not folly to them.” This aspect of human affairs is much dwelt upon in the Book of Job; it seems to be one of the central themes of the book. It finds its exemplification in the case of Job himself. The principal idea of the book is the unravelling of this mysterious confusion. Punishment may follow evil-doing, but it does not always immediately accompany it. Therefore some explanation is needed. It is evident
I. THAT A TRUE ESTIMATE OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENT MUST NOT BE BASED ON MERE INCIDENTS. Incidents do not always explain themselves. There are hidden springs of events. We know but little of every incident. We cannot trace its rise or its end. Other considerations must be taken into view besides the mere events on which judgment is to be passed.
II. THE ESTIMATE OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENT MUST NOT BE BASED ON A PARTIAL VIEW. All the materials needed to enable one to form a just estimate of God’s dealings in any single instance are not always immediately to hand. Much is hidden. Many purposes are to be served as much by the Divine inaction as by the Divine work. Men expect judgment upon an evil work to be presently executed. The Divine hand is withheld for many purposes which are not apparent. All judgment, to be true, must take all things into account. A wide range of vision needed for this. Few have opportunity of making it; therefore judgment must be suspended.
III. THE ESTIMATE OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENT CAN ONLY BE TRULY FORMED WHEN THE WHOLE PURPOSES OF GOD ARE MADE KNOWN. The one purpose most vital to S correct estimate may be withheld. It may be beyond the power of the human mind to grasp all. Certainly it is not possible to see all the bearings of the conduct of men. God alone can see the end from the beginning. In patience then must men wait for the end. A final judgment is needed to clear up the apparent anomalies of the present. Judgment upon the wicked is mercifully suspended that men may repent; chastisement falls upon the righteous for the perfecting of character. In due time the chastened, sorrowful, but good man shall receive an ample reward. These latter truths are especially illustrated in the history of Job.R.G.
Job 24:23, Job 24:24
The prosperity of the wicked unsolved.
In the midst of many apparent anomalies in the method of the Divine dealing with evil-doing, there shines out one obvious indication of the Divine judgment against the evil-doer. “They are exalted for a little while,” but suddenly they “are gone and brought low.” Patiently the good Ruler waits, giving opportunity for repentance and amendment; but if the wicked return not, he will bend his bow and make ready his arrow upon the string. Iniquity shall not go wholly unpunished; nor shall that punishment be merely a hidden oneit shall be made apparent. Such is the general testimony and experience; but there are many striking instances which seem to contradict this view, and Job adduces the frequent prosperity of the evil-doer.
I. THE PROSPERITY OF THE WICKED IS AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY. Even with the clearer light that now shines on human life it is not possible wholly to divest the mind of the feeling of surprise at the anomalous instances of prospering wickedness and suffering virtue.
II. THE PROSPERITY OF THE WICKED A FURTHER EXERCISE TO THE PATIENCE AND FAITH OF THE GODLY. It demands that the eye of faith be turned upwards to God. Events do not explain themselves. Nor are men able to find the Divine purposes revealed by events. More and more must the tried and tempted believer look off from the uncertain event, and place his faith in God alone. That faith is strained, but it grows thereby.
III. THE PROSPERITY OF THE WICKED IS NO GUARANTEE OF DEFENCE FROM JUDGMENT. Judgment lingers. It is even hidden. The good Lord of all would fain altogether restrain it. He rejoices in mercy. Wickedness often takes advantage of the withholding of judgment; but in this is no assurance that the judgment which is held back shall not be revealed.
IV. THE PROSPERITY OF THE WICKED NEEDS THE SOLUTION OF THE FUTURE. It points to a future judgment when men must give account, and seems to demand it. In that future what is mysterious in history will doubtless be made plain. No work can be fairly estimated until its completion. If it ever please the Lord of all to justify his dealings with men, he will do it in that dread judgment when each shall receive the due reward of his deeds.
V. THE PROSPERITY OF THE WICKED MAY BE A MERCIFUL FORBEARANCE IN THE HOPE OF REPENTANCE. God is kind, and waiteth long for the returning one, in hope that even the goodness of God may lead him to repentance. How often is this abused! but such is the spirit of wrong that it abuses the best of God’s gifts, and is indifferent to the kindest of God’s dealings.
The Book of Job represents the entanglement of human affairs, but it throws light upon it and helps to resolve it. We live in clearer light, but the clearest light of all has yet to shine when we shall see light in his light. For this we must prepare and patiently wait.R.G.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY
Job 24:1
God’s special days.
Job thinks that if it may not be always possible to see God, there may at least be certain times when he can be found. If he cannot be always giving an audience to his people, can he not be like a judge on circuit, allowing a day for those who would seek his aid at each part of his dominions?
I. THERE ARE TIMES OF SPECIAL DIVINE MANIFESTATION. God does give, in some manner, what Job is asking for. There is the” day of the Lord,” when he breaks through the settled order of the world, and sets his court as the Judge of all men. Such a day was often spoken of by. the Hebrew prophets. It came in Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem, and again in the later overthrow of the city by Titus and the Roman legions. It is predicted in the great final judgment of the world. So also there is a “day of the Lord” for individual men, when God breaks up the normal condition of life, and in the upheaval and confusion a Divine coming to judgment may be recognized. But God also has gracious seasons of visitation, “times of refreshing from the Lord.” Then the soul perceives his nearness, and enters into the joy and light of his presence.
II. GOD IS PRESENT WHEN HE DOES NOT MANIFEST HIMSELF. Although when thus simply stated this is a truism, it is certainly not commonly recognized in the world. Nobody denies it; yet many ignore it. God’s presence being invisible, and not generally evidenced by startling signs, men come to pass it by in their full absorption in secular pursuits. The practical question then arisesHow may the constant unseen presence of God come to be more fully recognized? It is absolutely necessary that we should learn to withdraw ourselves more from the things that are seen and temporal. If the pressure of worldly pursuits is allowed to crowd the thought of God out of the soul, the result must be a perfect deadness in regard to his presencea practical atheism, a living as though there were no God. When the desolation and dreariness of this life is perceived, we may well start back in horror from such a condition of spiritual decay.
III. IT IS FOOLISH TO WAIT FOR A NEW MANIFESTATION OF GOD. Job seemed to need this because his position was peculiar, and he was set to work out new problems of providence. But we have, what he had not, the fuller revelation of God in Christ. What we now need is not a fresh revelation, but eyes to read and hearts to perceive the Christian revelation. External, visible manifestations of God are not to be looked for now. Miracles were useful in the childhood of the race and in the infancy of the Church, but we have no right to expect miracles to make God better known to us. With us the need is of an interior illumination. So long as our spiritual sympathies are blind to God, no external manifestation will satisfy our needs. At the same time, we may well pray for God’s hand to be stretched forth in action. There are huge wrongs in the world and sorrowful miseries. The Church cries out for the fuller coming of Christ in his kingdom.W.F.A.
Job 24:2
Removing the landmarks.
This was an old offence under the Jewish Law (Deu 19:14). Here it appears first in a list of unjust actions. It introduces us to questions concerning the ethics of property.
I. PRIVATE PROPERTY IS RECOGNIZED BY SCRIPTURE. We cannot say that this indubitable fact is a complete answer to the proposals of the socialist, because it is not the function of revelation to determine social systems. It comes in to regulate our conduct under existing arrangements. Still, the recognition of private property shows that it is not in itself an evil thing. It may be urged that similar arguments would apply to polygamy and slavery, both of which are recognized and regulated in the Bible. There is this difference, however, that an enlightened Christian conscience perceives that the last-named practices are evil, and could only have been tolerated for a time to prevent greater evils; but the Christian conscience does not repudiate the idea of private property. Socialism may be fairly presented and argued about on grounds of expediency; but it cannot claim Christian teaching as favouring it rather than a wise and brotherly exercise of the rights of property. The short, temporary experiment at Jerusalem, when the disciples held all things in common, whatever this was (and it was far short of socialism), soon broke down. It was never urged on apostolic authority; it cannot be quoted as the model for all Church life.
II. PRIVATE PROPERTY NEEDS CLEAR DEFINITION. There must be landmarks, or there will be trespassing, springing from misunderstanding, leading to quarrelling. Wars between nations arise often out of disputes about boundaries, and private differences most frequently originate in a want of common agreement in the definition of rights. This is true of abstract as well as concrete rights. Nothing is more necessary for the maintenance of social order than that each individual in the state should know the limits that the just claims of others put upon his liberty. Absolute freedom is only possible on the prairie, or for a Robinson Crusoe on his solitary island. Directly we come to live in society we have to study mutual harmony, and to adjust the claims of neighbours. The perfect state becomes a sort of mosaic in which each individual has his place without overlapping that of his neighbour.
III. ONLY CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE WILL PREVENT THE ABUSE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. Each man is tempted to enlarge upon his rights. Without considering himself a thief, he is urged to remove the landmarks to his own advantage. State justice and the strong arm of the law prevent this wrong as far as possible. But real justice between man and man can never be perfectly established by government. There are innumerable ways in which the strong can oppress the weak, and the cunning impose upon the unwary, without any interference by the law. We must have a spirit of justice in the people to prevent these evils. Now, it is the glory of the Old Testament that it constantly impresses on us the duty of justice and the sin of injustice. This grand lesson is not the less imperative because we live in New Testament times. The grace of Christ is the inspiration of all goodness. No one can be a true Christian who is not upright in business, and straightforward in his dealings with his neighbours. Christian charity does not dispense with the primitive duty of justice.W.F.A.
Job 24:4
Oppressing the poor.
I. A COMMON PRACTICE. The Old Testament rings with denunciations of this evil, showing that it was rife in the days of ancient Israel. The New Testament repeats the denunciations of the Old. John the Baptist and Christ himself had to speak against unjust exactions. St. James suggests that the practice was even found in Christian Churches (Jas 5:4). It has not disappeared in our own day, though it often assumes subtle and deceptive forms. Many things contribute to an unfair treatment of the poor.
1. Their ignorance. They do not always know their rights, nor perceive where cunning men have an advantage over them. Thus they are not able to protect themselves fairly.
2. Their obscurity. It is difficult for a poor person who has been wronged to attract attention. Nobody knows him. He has no influential friends.
3. Their inability to obtain legal redress. Theoretically the law is equal in its treatment of rich and poor. Practically it is nothing of the kind. For the law is proverbially costly, and a poor man cannot afford to put its machinery in motion.
4. Their prejudiced position. People look askance at shabby clothes. If a man is low in the social scale, a certain stigma attaches to him in the eyes of money-worshippers. His poverty is a reproach. Our own day has seen the emancipation of labour. The organized working classes can exact their rights. But the very poor are beneath the help of the new trades union machinery. The tendency of the sweating system and of other forms of selfishness is to grind down and oppress the most helpless and needy.
II. A GREAT SIN. The commonness of the practice does not lessen its guilt. Because many of the well-to-do people who manage affairs combine to get as much as they can for themselves out of the less fortunate people beneath them, they are not individually innocent. The law regards combination to do a wrong as conspiracy, and therefore as an aggravated offence; and conspiracy to oppress the poor is an aggravated offence in the sight of God.
1. Against justice. Poor men have their rights, even if the law cannot help them to exact them. A right is not the less morally inviolable because means cannot be found to put it in force. This may not be recognized now. But the righteous government of God cannot ignore the sin of trampling on the just claims of the helpless.
2. Against Christian brotherhood. Christ has taught us to rise above the plea of Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” He has shown that we are not to regard ourselves as self-contained, or as having no interest in our neighbours. The parable of “the good Samaritan” has set before us for all time the pattern of the conduct that he approves of. All who need have claims upon usclaims springing directly out of their need and our neighbourhood in regard to them. Christ’s own life and work teach us that the helpless are our brothers. To oppress them is to commit an outrage against members of our own family. It is the mission of Christianity to spread the spirit of brotherhood among men, and so to substitute brotherly kindness for heartless oppression.W.F.A.
Job 24:12
The bitter cry of the city.
An ominous characteristic of the social condition of modern England is the continuous draining of the population out of the rural districts into the cities. No greater scandal exists than the condition of the crowded multitudes in these great centres. From time to time we are roused by some prophet-voice that draws our attention to the misery and degradation of the city poor, and warns us of the danger that lurks therein. But it is not enough to be periodically startled, and to make occasional spasmodic efforts to remedy the evil. Continuous study and patient, unremitting toil are called for to cope with the dark problem. The bitter cry is shrill and penetrating, and of many voices.
I. POVERTY. This is the first visible cause of the misery. The poor regard London as an Eldorado. It seems as though they must get some employment in the vast, busy city. So they pour into it in shoals. There individually they are lost sight of. The very multitude of them drowns their separate claims and appeals. A huge mass of poverty does not touch personal sympathies. It is a horror of misery, but it does not call for the aid that the distress of one person whose exact circumstances and history are known elicits.
II. OVERCROWDING. This evil means more than wretchedness. It is a distinct cause of moral deterioration, a direct source of dark vices. Herded like beasts, is it wonderful that men live like beasts? The decencies of life are impossible. All the finer feelings are crushed by coarse surroundings. The gracious influences of silence and privacy are unknown. People are forced to live and move and have their being in the midst of a noisy mob. The certain result is a break-down of civilization, and a corrupt civilization is worse than barbarism. The savagery of city slums is of a more degraded type than that of African forests.
III. DRINK. All who have looked carefully into the condition of the miserably poor of great cities are driven to the one conclusion that the most prolific source of evil is intemperance. No doubt the overcrowding, the misery, the absence of all other resources drive people to this one desperate consolation. We must remove the causes of intemperance if we would sweep away the vice. Still, it is a vice. Indulgence in it is morally degrading. So huge a vice demands exceptional treatment. It is the duty of Christian people not merely to enjoy their aesthetic worship, but also to follow Christ in saving the lost. Temperance work must take a prominent place in the activities of the Church.
IV. NARROWNESS OF LIFE. The town life is dingy and compressed. The influences of nature are not felt. The School Board has not yet brought the spirit of culture within the horizon of the crowded people in the lower parts of great cities. Religion is little more than a name to too many of these unhappy people. Such a cramped and crushed life cannot grow and bear fruit in the graces of human experience. Here, then, is a bitter cry that all Christians should hearken to for Christ’s sake. It is humiliating to a Christian nation that such a cry should be heard in our land; it will be a sign that our religion is but hypocritical Pharisaism if the cry is unheeded.W.F.A.
Job 24:19
The death-penalty of sin.
Job admits this as. freely as his friends. Sin must lead to the grave. It may not do this so swiftly as the friends assume; nor may the course thither be what they anticipate. But, in the long run, a man’s sin must be his death.
I. THE SPECIFIC PENALTY OF SIN IS DEATH. Sin may fulfil, and more than fulfil, some of its promises first; but the end is death. This dreadful fact, which is made clear to us from the story of Adam and Eve, throughout the whole of the Old and New Testaments, is obscured by popular conceptions of the future. The Church has regarded pain as the main consequence of sin. The gruesome mediaeval hell has been presented to the trembling sinner as the goal of his evil course. Now suffering, bitter and grievous, is in store for the impenitent, for Christ speaks of “wailing and gnashing of teeth.” But suffering is not the only end of sin. Much more frequent than any references to the suffering of the wicked are the Scripture warnings of death and destruction. Whatever interpretation we put upon these warningswhether we take them as denoting absolute extinction of being, pure annihilation, or whether we regard them as pointing to some corrupting, dissolving influencethey mean something else than keen, wakeful pain.
II. THE DEATH–PENALTY IS A NATURAL CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. Job tells us that the effect is like that of drought and heat consuming the snow-waters. No destroying angel need be sent forth with flaming sword to cut down the army of sinners. They are their own destroyers. The sword is in their own conduct. This is often seen in the physical effects of vice, which sows seeds of disease, and hastens premature decay. It is always present in the moral consequences of evil. The spiritual nature is diseased, corrupted, lowered. Powers and faculties fade and wither away. The true self shrinks and shrivels. Existence in the body on earth becomes a living death. When the life of the body is gone it is difficult to see what life is left, for this life seemed to be all that was possessed.
III. THE DEATH–PENALTY CAN ONLY BE AVOIDED BY THE GENERATION OF A NEW LIFE. Sentence has gone out against us; the sentence is in our own constitution. Here is the difficulty. If it were external, an external process might abolish it; but seeing that it is internal, it must be dealt with internally. No mere decree of pardon will be sufficient, for the poison is in the blood, the death is already at work there. A simple order of forgiveness can do nothing. The pressing need is for an antidote within. Nay, the old self has been so injured and corrupted by sin, that a new life is needed. We are beyond cure; we are like lepers who have lost limbs in their disease. Healing is not enough; a new creation is necessary. Now, this is just what Christ effects. He does not only give external pardon, he is not satisfied to manipulate legal points; he regenerates. He says, “Ye must be born again (Joh 3:3); and St. Paul tells us that he that is in Christ Jesus is a new creature (2Co 5:17).W.F.A.
Job 24:24
A little while.
Job is here taking a step towards the solution of the problem that his misfortunes have raised. Rejecting the hackneyed doctrine of his friends that trouble comes as the temporal punishment of sin, and seeing that bad men often escape trouble, he concludes that all the injustice is but temporary. The prosperity of the wicked is but for “a little while.” Before long there will be a fair treatment of all.
I. WICKEDNESS MAY BE ACCOMPANIED BY TEMPORARY PROSPERITY,
1. This is an obvious fact. Only the extraordinary blindness of bigotry could have allowed the three friends to deny it. Job has only to point to events which are open to the eyes of all, to show that there are bad prosperous men. This is always admitted when it is approached from another point of view, i.e. when the sins of the rich are denounced.
2. This should not dismay us. All faith has grown up in face of the obvious fact of the prosperity of the wicked. If we have not considered it, others have in bygone ages. Yet faith has flourished and triumphed, although she could not explain the mystery. Therefore faith may still find ground to stand on, even when one more person discovers to his surprise what has always been patent to all who would take the trouble to observe it.
3. This cannot justify wickedness. Earthly prosperity is not the seal of heavenly approval. The assumption that it is so only originated in a mistake. Here ancient orthodoxy has proved to be in error. If the notion is erroneous when used against a man in misfortune, it is equally erroneous when claimed by one who is temporarily prosperous.
II. THE PROSPERITY THAT ACCOMPANIES WICKEDNESS CAN ONLY ENDURE FOR A LITTLE WHILE.
1. It does not outlast death. By the nature of things it cannot do so, because it simply springs from accidental circumstances and earthly influences, which are confined to this life. It has not its source in a deep and enduring spiritual experience. The very triumph of it rests on the score of the spiritual. But though the spiritual may be trampled on now, it cannot be pretended that the material will continue after death. Riches, pleasures, pomp, and prowess are all left behind on this side of the grave.
2. Its earthly existence is brief. The careless man may postpone all consideration of his end. He may be satisfied that he has enough and to spare for the present. Nevertheless, the present is rushing away from him. As he looks back, all past years seem to be but a brief period, and coming years will accelerate their speed. What, then, is this short tenure of prosperity for which he is selling himself? A passing shadow!
3. It is of/ no worth even while possessed. The temporary character of this prosperity of the wicked is a sign that it is a hollow deception. Its charms are proved to be meretricious by the fact that it will not remain with us. So ephemeral a good cannot be substantial. The seeds of decay are in it from the first. And what is its joy but a deceitful mockery? There is a dreadful doom in the very quietness of this hopeless life. All that is worth living for is gone out of it. Rich, gay, outwardly prosperous, the soul is
“Left in God’s contempt apart,
With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart.”
W.F.A.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
CHAP. XXIV.
Job affirms, that wickedness often goes unpunished; but that there is a secret judgment remaining for the wicked.
Before Christ 1645.
Job 24:1. Why, seeing times, &c. Job, having obviated in the foregoing chapter the charge of Eliphaz, as to a denial or disbelief of God’s providence, goes on to express his wishes, that God, in his providence, would make a more visible distinction between the wicked and the righteous in this world; that thus good men might not fall into such mistakes by censuring suffering innocence, Job 24:1. And, whereas Eliphaz had compared him to the men of violence and oppression in the antediluvian world, he recites a long list of the crimes of those persons, which had justly drawn down the divine vengeance; placing it, as it were, in contrast with his own character, which he had sketched in the foregoing chapter, Job 24:11-12 thereby shewing the defect of the comparison, and, as it were, defying them to convict him of any of those crimes, Job 24:2-18. He concludes with shewing what, according to their principles, ought to be the general course of Providence with regard to wicked men, which, however, was notoriously not the case; and since it was not, it was plain that he had proved his point: the falsity of their general maxim was apparent; and their censure of him, merely for his sufferings, was a behaviour by no means justifiable; Job 24:19 to the end. Heath.
Timesdays These terms are in the Hebrew judicial: the former expresses seasons set apart for the public administration of justice; the latter seems rather to denote the time of such judgments being put in execution. Heath renders the verse, Why are not stated seasons set apart by the Almighty? And why do not those who know him see his days? Houbigant gives it a different interpretation, which, indeed, seems better to agree with the context: What is the reason why, when times have not been hidden by the Almighty from men, they attend not to his day, which they know? i.e. “Whence comes it to pass, that when God has not concealed the times or changes of human affairs, men should still act so blameably; as if God had hidden in perpetual darkness both things present and things future?”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
B.Job: Seeing that God withdraws Himself from him, and that moreover His allotment of mens destinies on earth is in many ways most unequal, the incomprehensibleness of His ways may hence be inferred, as well as the short-sightedness and one-sidedness of the external theory of retribution held by the friends
Job 23-24
1. The wish for a judicial decision of God in his favor is repeated, but is repressed by the thought that God intentionally withdraws from him, in order that He may not be obliged to vindicate him in this life
Job 23
1Then Job answered, and said:
2Even to-day is my complaint bitter:
my stroke is heavier than my groaning.
3O that I knew where I might find Him!
that I might come even to His seat!
4I would order my cause before Him,
and fill my mouth with arguments.
5I would know the words which He would answer me,
and understand what He would say unto me.
6Will He plead against me with His great power?
No; but He would put strength in me.
7There the righteous might dispute with Him;
so should I be delivered forever from my judge.
8Behold I go forward, but He is not there;
and backward, but I cannot perceive Him;
9on the left hand where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him;
He hideth Himself on the right hand that I cannot see Him.
10But He knoweth the way that I take:
when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
11My foot hath held His steps,
His way have I kept, and not declined.
12Neither have I gone back from the commandment of His lips;
I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.
13But He is in one mind, and who can turn Him?
and what His soul desireth, even that He doeth.
14For He performeth the thing that is appointed for me:
and many such things are with Him.
15Therefore am I troubled at His presence:
when I consider, I am afraid of Him.
16For God maketh my heart soft,
and the Almighty troubleth me.
17Because I was not cut off before the darkness,
neither hath He covered the darkness from my face.
2. The darkness and unsearchableness of Gods ways to be recognized in many other instances of an unequal distribution of earthly prosperity, as well as in Jobs case
Job 24
1Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty,
do they that know Him not see His days?
2Some remove the landmarks;
they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof.
3They drive away the ass of the fatherless,
they take the widows ox for a pledge.
4They turn the needy out of the way;
the poor of the earth hide themselves together.
5Behold, as wild asses in the desert,
go they forth to their work, rising betimes for a prey:
the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children.
6They reap every one his corn in the field:
and they gather the vintage of the wicked.
7They cause the naked to lodge without clothing,
that they have no covering in the cold.
8They are wet with the showers of the mountains,
and embrace the rock for want of a shelter.
9They pluck the fatherless from the breast,
and take a pledge of the poor.
10They cause him to go naked without clothing,
and they take away the sheaf from the hungry;
11which make oil within their walls,
and tread their wine-presses, and suffer thirst.
12Men groan from out of the city,
and the soul of the wounded crieth out:
yet God layeth not folly to them.
13They are of those that rebel against the light;
they know not the ways thereof,
nor abide in the paths thereof.
14The murderer rising with the light
killeth the poor and needy,
and in the night is as a thief.
15The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight,
saying, No eye shall see me:
and disguiseth his face.
16In the dark they dig through houses,
which they had marked for themselves in the daytime:
they know not the light.
17For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death:
If one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death
18He is swift as the waters;
their portion is cursed in the earth:
he beholdeth not the way of the vineyards.
19Drought and heat consume the snow waters:
so doth the grave those which have sinned.
20The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him;
he shall be no more remembered;
and wickedness shall be broken as a tree.
21He evil entreateth the barren that beareth not:
and doeth not good to the widow.
22He draweth also the mighty with his power:
he riseth up, and no man is sure of life.
23Though it be given him to be in safety, whereon he resteth;
yet his eyes are upon their ways.
24They are exalted for a little while, but are gone
and brought low; they are taken out of the way as all others,
and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn.
25And if it be not so now, who will make me a liar,
and make my speech nothing worth?
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Instead of replying directly to the injurious accusations of Eliphaz in Job 22:6 sq.; Job here recurs first of all to the wish which he has already uttered several times (especially in chs. 9 and 13), that God Himself might manifest Himself as Umpire and as Witness of his innocence, and so end authoritatively the controversy which in each successive stage was becoming more and more involved. This wish is, however, immediately repressed by the thought that God purposely keeps Himself removed from him, in order to make him drink the cup of his sufferings to the dregs (Job 23). And in connection with the mournful fact that his state is so cheerless and so full of suffering, and furnishes living proof that God withholds the exercise of His retributive justice, he arrays forthwith (in the second and longer division of his discourse, Job 24), numerous facts of a similar character, which may be observed in the sphere of human life in general. In particular he sets forth many examples of the prosperity of the wicked, continuing to extreme old age, or even to the end of life. He dwells with evident satisfaction on his description of these examples, in order in this way to establish and illustrate most fully, the incomprehensibleness of the divine ways.The whole discourse, apart from the two principal divisions, which coincide with the customary division by chapters, is divided into smaller strophes of four verses each (in one case of five) in accordance with the strophe-divisions of Ewald, as well as of Stickel and Delitzsch, which in the present case are entirely in harmony.
2. First Division. Repetition of the wish, heretofore uttered, that God might appear to rescue and to vindicate him, together with a self-suggested objection, and an expression of doubt whether the wish would be realized: Job 23.
First Strophe: Job 23:2-5. Even to-day my complaint is still bitter.Both the authority of the Ancient Versions, such as the Targ., Pesh., Vulg. [E. V.], and also the comparison with former passages, such as Job 7:11; Job 10:1, favor the view that signifies bitterness, and is thus synonymous with , the possibility of which is shown by the cognate radical relation of the verbs and , which occasionally interchange forms; comp. Delitzsch on the passage. If we take the word however in its ordinary signification of frowardness, perverseness, we get a suitable meaning: my complaint is still ever froward (ever bids defiance, maintains its opposition), i.e., against such exhortations to penitence as those of Eliphaz (or in opposition to God, as Hahn, Olshausen, etc., explain). On the other hand we can make no use of the reading of the LXX.: (), nor yet of Ewalds conjecture derived from it, by reason of His hand is my complaint [so Copt. and Merx].My hand lies heavy on my groaning:i. e., I am driven to the continuous outbreak of my groaning, I must all the time force forth groans (not: my hand thrusts down my groaning, forces it back; Hirzel). Since this rendering yields a meaning that is entirely suitable, and suffers from no particular difficulty as to the language, it is unnecessary either with the Targ. [E. V.], to understand of the hand of God which strikes me (the suffix sensu obj.) or (with the LXX. and Pesh.) [Merx] to read . (According to E. V., Ges., Ber., Noyes, Schlottm., Ren., Rod., is comparative: the hand upon me is heavier than my groaning, which gives a suitable meaning, at least if we take in the sense of bitterness. The objection to it is, however, as stated by Delitzsch, that is an established phrase, and commonly used of the burden of the hand upon any one, Psa 32:4 (comp. Job 33:7; and the connection with , 1Sa 5:6, and , 1Sa 5:11).E.]. It remains to be said that the clause defining the time, , even today, belongs to both halves of the verse, and for the same reason it expresses the more general sense, even now, even always, (comp. Job 3:24). The supposition that the colloquy had lasted several days, and that in particular the present third course of the same had begun one day later than the one preceding is scarcely admissible on the strength of their expression, which is certainly not to be pressed too far, (against Ewald, 2d Ed., and Dillmann).
Job 23:3. Oh that I but knew how to find Him.The Perf. with the following Imperf. consec. () expresses the principal notion contained in Jobs wish: utinam scirem (locum ejus), et invenirem eum = utinam possim invenire eum! Comp. the similar construction in Job 32:22; also Gesen., 142, ( 139), 3, c. The rendering of Dillmann: Oh that I, having known (where He is to be found), might find Him, (in accordance with Ewald, 357 b) gives essentially the same sense. in the second member means by itself, a frame, stand, setting up; here specifically, seat, throne, i.e., the judgment seat of God, as the sequel shows.
Job 23:4. In regard to , causam instruere, comp. Job 13:18; in regard to (lit. objections, reproofs) in the specific sense of legal arguments, grounds of justification, see Psa 38:15 [14]; also above Job 13:3.
Second Strophe: Job 23:6-9. The doubt as to the possibility of such a protective interposition of God, begins again to appear. This (Job 23:6) takes first of all the form of a shrinking reflection on the crushing effect which Gods majesty and infinite fulness of power might easily exert upon him; a thought which has already emerged twice before (Job 9:34; Job 13:21), and which in this place Job, supported by the consciousness of his innocence, repudiates and tramples under foot. Would He in omnipotence then contend with me? Nay! He would only regard me: i. e., only give heed to me (, scil.; comp. Job 4:20; here in union with to express the cleaving of the Divine regard to him, comp. , Job 6:28): only grant me a hearing, and as the result thereof acquit me. [ nothing but; intensive; the very thing that He would do, hence the thing that He would assuredly do]. To render the Imperfect verbs and as expressive of a wish: shall He contend with me? i. e., shall I wish, that He would contend with me? (Hirzel, Ew., Dillm., etc.), is altogether too artificial, and not at all required by the connection. [The E. V., Bar., Carey, supply strength () after : God, so far from using His power to crush Job, would strengthen him to plead his cause. But the ellipsis of is already justified by Job 4:20, and the antithesis thus obtained between a and b is more direct and natural.E.].
Job 23:7. Then ( as in Job 35:12; Psa 14:5; Psa 66:6, and often in a temporal sense; then, when such a judicial interposition of God should take place) would a righteous man plead (lit., be pleading, , partic.) with Him:i. e., it would be shown that it is a righteous man who pleads with him; and I should forever escape my Judge; i. e., by virtue of this my uprightness. is, like Job 20:20, intensive of Kal.
Job 23:8-9. The joyful prospect is suddenly swept away by the thought that God is nowhere, in no quarter of the world to be found.Yet (, yet behold, in an adversative sense, as in Job 21:16) if I go eastward, He is not there, etc. (toward the front, = toward the east) and (toward the rear, = toward the west, comp. Job 18:20), refer to the eastern and western quarters of the heavens, even as the following left and right refer to the northern and southern.If He works northward, I behold (Him) not; if He turns southward I see it not. , toward the left is an adverbial local clause, qualifying , as also qualifying . The former verb expresses its customary meaning: to work, to be active, efficient, which suits here very well (comp. Job 28:26), so that every different rendering, as e. g., taking = , to take His way (Blumenfeld), or = to hide Himself (Umbreit), or = to incline Himself, to turn Himself (Ewald), seems uncalled for. On the other hand the common signification of to veil Himself, is less suitable in b [so E. V., Lee, Con., Ber., Rod. Elz,, etc.], than the signification bending, turning aside adopted by Saadia, Schultens, Ewald Delitzsch, etc., after the Arabic. If this latter definition deserves here the preference, there is he less probability that the passage contains any reference to the , (the chambers of the South, Job 9:9), or, generally speaking, to any celestial abode of God as set forth in heathen theologies or cosmogonies. Rather does he poet conceive of God as omnipresent, as much so as the poet of the 139th Psalm, in his similar description (Job 23:8-10). [Gesenius and Carey translate b: He veileth the South, etc., but less appropriately, the construction of being evidently the same with , which is unquestionably adverbial.E.]
Third Strophe: Job 23:10-13. The reason why God withdraws Himself: although He knows Jobs innocence, He nevertheless will not abandon His purpose, once formed, not to allow Himself to be found by Him. [He conceals Himself from him, lest He should be compelled to acknowledge the right of the sufferer, and to withdraw His chastening hand from him. Delitz.]
Job 23:10. For He knows well my accustomed, way. , lit. the way with me, i. e., the way which adheres to me, which is steadfastly pursued by me (comp. Psa 139:24; Ew., 287 c), or: the way of which I am conscious [which his conscience () approves ()], as Delitzsch explains, referring to Job 9:35; Job 15:9.If He should prove me (, an elliptical conditional clause; comp. Ewald, 357, b), I should come forth as gold, i. e., out of His crucible; a very strong and bold declaration of his consciousness of innocence, for which Job must hereafter (Job 42:6) implore pardon.
Job 23:11. My foot hath held firm to His step (, as elsewhere , Psa 17:5; Pro 5:5) [The Oriental foot has a power of grasp and tenacity, because not shackled with shoes from early childhood, of which we can form but little idea. Carey]: His way I have kept, and turned not aside. , Jussive Hiph. from , in the intransitive sense of deflectere, as in Psa 125:5; Isa 30:11.
Job 23:12. The commandment of His lipsI have not departed from it., intransitive, like in the verse preceding. In regard to the construction (antecedent placing of a nominative absolute) comp. Job 4:6. More than my (own) law I have observed the saying of His mouth; have accordingly set them for above all that I have, of my own will, desired or prescribed for myself. [Bernard explains the preposition here to mean: by reason of my rule, i. e., by reason of my having made it a rule. This however obscures the striking contrast between and E.]. With we may compare the law in the members warring against the Divine law, Rom 7:23. [E. V. takes , as in Gen 47:22; Pro 30:8, in the sense of ones allowance of food; Ewald also translates by Gebhr (that which as a distinguished rich man I have the right to require in my relations to other men, and my claims upon them). The consideration of Jobs greatness and power should be borne in mind with the rendering law. The law which Job had ever held subordinate to the Divine precepts was the will of a prince.E.]. to lay up, preserve, is here substantially equivalent with , comp. Psa 119:11; in view of which parallel passage it is not necessary with the LXX. instead of to read , .
Job 23:13. Nevertheless He remaineth (ever) the same, and who will turn Him viz., from His purpose; comp. Job 9:12; Job 11:10. , not: He remaineth by one thing (Hirzel, Del.) [Lee, Noyes, Carey], for this would have been expressed by the neuter form (comp. Job 9:22); but the is essenti (Gesen. 154 [ 151] 3, a), and the thought expressed is that of the unchangeableness, the constancy of God (not the oneness, or the absolute superiority of God, as the Vulg., Targ., Starke, who refers to Gal 3:20, Schultens, Ewald, Schlottmann, [Ges., Ber., Rod., Elz.] explain, but against the context. With b compare the well-known expression: He spake, and it was done, etc., Psa 33:9. [The unchangeable purpose of God of which Job here speaks is evidently the purpose to inflict suffering on him, a purpose to which He inflexibly adheres, notwithstanding He knows Jobs integrity, and finds through His crucible that the sufferer is pure gold.E.].
Fourth Strophe: Job 23:14-17. Truly ( as in Job 22:26), He will accomplish my destiny. with suffix of the object, means here that which has been decreed, ordained concerning me. And much of a like kind is with Himi. e., has been determined by Him, lies in His purpose, (comp. Job 9:35; Job 10:13; Job 15:9). The much of that kind spoken of refers not specifically to Jobs sufferings (Umbreit, Delitzsch, etc.), as rather to all that is analogous thereto, to all decrees of a like character regarding men in general.
Job 23:15. Therefore do I tremble (lit. I am terrified, troubled) before His face; if I consider it, I am afraid before Him. is an elliptical hypothetical antecedent, as is the case in Job 23:10 b. We are to supply as the object to be considered the unfathomable decree of God, by virtue of which he must suffer.
Job 23:16. And God hath made my heart faint [lit. soft] ( Hiph. from , Deu 20:3, etc.), and the Almighty has confounded me. The emphasis rests in the subjects and which are purposely placed first in both members. It is God Himself, who by His incomprehensibly harsh and stern treatment has plunged him in anguish and terror; his suffering considered in itself by no means exerts such a crushing influence upon him (see the vers. following).
Job 23:17. For I am not dumb before the darkness, nor yet before myself whom thick darkness has coveredi. e., the darkness of my calamity (comp. Job 22:11), and my own face and form darkened and disfigured by my sufferings (comp. Job 19:13 seq.) are not able to strike me dumb (with horror); only the thought of God can do this, who with His incomprehensible decree stands behind this my suffering! Observe the significant contrast between the of this ver. and the of Job 23:15 a; as well as moreover the antithetic relation, which obtains between this passage and the statement of Eliphaz in Job 22:11 that Job seemed not to mark at all the terrible darkness of his misery. Either of these retrospective references of the passage is lost sight of if, with most of the ancients (LXX., Vulg., Luth.] [E. V. Ges., Scott, Noyes, Ber., Ren., Rod., Elz.] we render: because I was not cut off (deleri, perire, as in Job 6:17) before the darkness came, and He has not covered the darkness from my face [i. e., has not covered me in the grave, so that I might never have faced this suffering]. The signification: to become dumb, to be brought to silence, is the only one that is suitable here; we should then have to think (with Delitzsch, etc.) of an inward destruction by terror and confusion.
3. Second Division: Job 24. An extended description of the many incomprehensible things in what God does as ruler of the universe, beginning with the many instances in which He permits the innocent and defenceless to be oppressed and persecuted by their powerful enemies: Job 24:1-12.
Fifth Strophe: Job 24:1-4. Why are times not reserved by the Almighty?i. e. times of reckoning with good and evil; judicial terms, at which He displays His retributive justice. In. regard to the use of , reserving [storing up] in the sense of appointing, fixing, comp. Job 15:20; Job 21:19. The question is of course so intended as to require no answer, or a negative one. So also in the second member: and do His friends (lit. His knowers [acquaintances], they who are His, who know Him, and He them, comp. Job 18:21; Psa 36:11 [10]) not see His days?The days of God here are His judgment days, the days in which He reveals Himself in judicial rigor against his enemies, and in beneficent mercy toward His holy ones (comp. Eze 30:3, also the expression, the days of the Son of Man in Luk 17:22). This verse also seems to contain a retrospective reference to the last discourse of Eliphaz, especially to Job 22:19; by the ancients, moreover, who were troubled more; particularly about the , terms, judicial periods, it was variously misunderstood, and erroneously translated. [The construction adopted by E. V., Con., etc.: Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know Him not. see His days? is a less natural and simple rendering of the original than, that given above. Conant objects that this, question is not pertinent here. The point of inquiry is not, why are such times of retribution not appointed by God; but why, if they are appointed by Him, as alleged, do not good men witness them? Job however does deny, by implication, that there is any retribution, or time reserved for it, with the Almighty. The phenomena of human life, he argues, indicate that God cares not how men sin, or suffer. The second member of the verse puts the thought of the first in a still more striking light. The indications of retributive justice in the administration of the world, are such that not even Gods familiars, who are in His secret, can discern the days whereon they occur.E.].
Job 24:2. Landmarks they remove [or, are removed; vb. impersonal] flocks, they plunder, and feed. From this point on begins the specific description of the many deeds of violence, oppression and persecution permitted by God. The vers. immediately following (3, 4) describe the wicked agents who commit such deeds, Job 24:5-8 the wretched ones who suffer from them, and thence on interchangeably, now the persecutors and now the persecuted, the verbs used being put in the 3d person plural Perfect. In respect to the wickedness of removing landmarks, ( = , from ) comp. Deu 19:14; Deu 27:17; Pro 22:28; Pro 23:10. In regard to the plundering and carrying off of herds, comp. Job 20:19. [They steal flocks, i. e., they are so bare-faced, that after they have stolen them, they pasture them openly. Delitzsch].
Job 24:3. , to drive away, as in Isa 20:4; , to distrain, to take as a pledge as in Exo 22:25; Deu 24:6; comp. below Job 24:9 (whereas on the other hand in Job 22:6 the word is used in a somewhat different sense). [The ass of the orphan, and the yoke-ox of the widow are here referred to as the most valuable possession, and principal dependence of those unfortunate ones.E.].
Job 24:4. The poor they thrust oat of the wayi. e., out of the way, in which they have the right to walk, into roadless regions (comp. in a similar sense in Amo 5:12). All together ( as in Job 3:18) the wretched of the land must hide themselves.So according to the Kri: ;, while the Kthibh would, according to Psa 76:10; Zep 2:3 designate the afflicted, the sufferers of the land, which seems less suitable here. The Pass. denotes what these unfortunate ones are compelled to do; comp. Job 30:7.
Sixth Strophe; Job 24:5-8. Description of the miserable condition into which the oppressed and persecuted are brought by those wicked ones (not of another class of evil-doers apart from those previously spoken of, as ancient exegesis for the most part assumed, and as latterly Rosenm., Umbr., Vaih. [Lee, Barnes, Carey, Scott, etc.] explain). As is evident from the more extended description in Job 30:1-8 of the unsettled, vagabond life of such unfortunates, the poet has here before his eyes the aborigines of the lands east of the Jordan, who were driven from their homes into the desert, possibly the remnant of the ancient Horites [cave-dwellers]; comp. what is said more in detail below on Job 30. Behold, wild asses in the wilderness (i. e. as wild asses; comp. Job 6:5; Job 11:12; Job 39:5 seq.), they go forth in their daily work (lit. work; comp. Psa 104:23), seeking after prey (, booty, prey, a living, as in Pro 31:15) [from in the primary signification decerpere describes that which in general forms their daily occupation as they roam about. The idea of waylaying is not to be connected with the expression. Del.]; the steppe [, the wide, open, desert plain] is to them (lit. to him, viz., to each one of them), [or to him as father of the company, Del., or possibly the sing. is used to avoid the concurrence of with immediately following: Hirzel] bread for their children( as in Job 1:19; Job 29:5) [the steppe, with its scant supply of roots and herbs, is to him food for the children; ho snatches it from it, it must furnish it to him (Del.) thus accounting for the use of ]. A striking description of the beggar, vagabond life of these troglodytes, the precursors of the gipsies, or South-African Bushmen of to-day. [Of the , onagri (Kulans), with which these are compared, Delitzsch says: Those beautiful animals, which, while young, are difficult to be caught; which in their love of freedom are an image of the Beduin, Gen 16:12; in their untractableness an image of that which cannot be bound, Job 11:12; and from their roaming about in herds in waste regions, are here an image of a gregarious vagrant, and freebooter kind of life. Del.]
Job 24:6. In the field they reap (so according to the Kri the Kthibh would be rendered by some such expression as they make for a harvest) the cattle-fodder [, as in Job 6:5, mixed fodder for the cattle, farrago]; lit. his cattle-fodder, i. e. that of the mentioned in b. [Most explain this to mean that these miserable hirelings seek to satisfy their hunger with the fodder grown the cattle. Delitzsch on the ground that does not signify to sweep together, but to reap in an orderly manner; and if they meant to steal why did they not seize the better portion of the produce? supposes that the rich evildoer hires them to cut the fodder for his cattle, but does not like to entrust the reaping of the better kinds of corn to them. This view, however, seems less natural than the former, and less in harmony with the parallelism. See below on b.E.]. And they glean the vineyard of the wicked. serotinos fructus colligere (Rosenm.), to glean the late-ripe fruit, i. e. stealing it. The meaning can scarcely be that this was done in the service of the rich evil-doer, in which case the verb racemari would rather have been used (against Delitzsch).
Job 24:7. Naked (, adverbial accusative, as in Job 24:10; comp. , Job 12:17; Job 12:19) they pass the night without clothing, lit. from the lack of, comp. Job 24:8 b. and Job 24:10.
Job 24:8. And shelterless (from lack of shelter) they clasp the rock., they embrace the rock, in that shivering they crouch beneath it as their shelter. Comp. the phrase, embracing the dunghill (mezabil), Lam 4:5.
Seventh Strophe: Job 24:9-12. Resuming the description of the tyrannical conduct of those men of power described in Job 24:2-4. They tear the orphan from the breast. here the same as , as also in Isa 60:16; Isa 66:11. Correctly therefore the LXX.: whereas to render in its customary signification of destruction, ruin (as e. g. by Ramban, etc.) [=from the shattered patrimony], yields no satisfactory meaning. The act of tearing away from the breast is conceived of as the violent deed of harsh creditors, who would satisfy their claims by bringing up the orphan children as slaves. And what the miserable one has on they take away as a pledge.A tenable meaning, and one that will agree well with Job 24:10 is obtained only by regarding as an elliptical expression for and what is on the miserable one, i. e. What he wears, his clothing (Ralbag, Gesen., Arnh., Vaih., Dillmann) [Rod., Bernard, Noyes]. With the thought may then be compared Mic 2:9; in respect to see above on Job 24:3. The other explanations which have been given are less suited to the connection, if not absolutely impossible, such as: they take a pledge above [beyond the ability of] the sufferer (Hirzel); they take for a pledge the suckling ( of the poor) (Kamphausen) [Elzas]; with the poor they deal basely, or knavishly (Umbr., Del.), which latter rendering however would make it seem strange that the verb has only a short while before been used twice (Job 24:3, and Job 22:6) in the sense of distraining. [To which add Dillmanns objection that this interpretation seems colorless, out of place in the series of graphic, concrete touches of which the description is composed. It may also be said of the explanation of E. V. Ewald, Schlott., Renan, Conant, etc., they impose a pledge on the sufferers, that it is less vivid than that adopted above. It must be admitted on the other hand that the assumption that = is somewhat doubtful.E.].
Job 24:10-12 again bring into the foreground as subject those who are maltreated by the proud oppressors. These are however no longer represented as the wretched inhabitants of steppes or caves, but as poor serfs on the estates of the rich, and are thus represented as being in inhabited cities and their vicinity. Naked they (the poor) slink about, without clothing.Comp. Job 24:7, and in respect to , to slink, see Job 30:28. And hungry they bear the sheavesi. e. for the rich, whose hired service they perform, who however allow them to go hungry in their service, and thus become guilty of the crying sin of the merces retenta laborum (Deu 25:4; 1Ti 5:18, etc.). [The English translators, misled probably by the Piel, , which they took to be transitive, have made the oppressors of the vers. preceding the subject of Job 24:10. however is always to walk about, to go to and fro (so also in Pro 8:20). Taking it in this sense here, the subject is naturally the poor; and in the second member is simply to bear, not to take away from.E.]
Job 24:11. Between their walls (hence under their strict supervision) they must press out the oil (, Hiph. denom., only here); they tread the wine-vats, and suffer thirst (while so engagedImperf. consec. comp. Ewald, 342, a). A further violation of the law that the mouth of the ox must not be muzzled.
Job 24:12. Out of the cities the dying groan.So according to the reading (Pesh., 1 Ms. of de Rossis, and some of the older editions), which word indeed elsewhere means the dead, but which here, as the parallel of the following (wounded, pierced to death, comp. Eze 26:15; Jer 51:22) may very well be taken to mean the dying, those who utter the groaning and rattling of the death struggle [see Green, 266, 2, a]. So correctly Umbreit, Ew., Hirz., Vaih., Stick., Heiligst., Dillmann [Schlott., Renan, Noyes. Others (Carey, Elzas, etc.) in the weaker sense: mortals.] The usual reading , men, yields a suitable rendering only by disregarding the masoretic accentuation, and connecting this as subj. with (so Jer., Symmachus, Theod.). In that case, however, it should be translated not by the colorless and indefinite term people [Leute] (Hahn, etc.) but by men [Mnnen, viri], warriors, and understood (with Del.) of the male population of a city, whom a conqueror would put to the sword. This however would remove the discourse too far out of the circle of thought in which it has hitherto removed. [According to the Masor. punctuations would be out of an inhabited, thickly populated city, a thought which has no place in the connection. Gesenius, followed by Conant, takes (II Lex.) in the sense of anguish: for anguish do the dying groan. But the second member: and the soul of the wounded cries out, brings up before us a scene of blood, involving the slaying of a multitude, for which we should have been unprepared without the mention of the city in the first member.E.]. Yet God regards not the folly!, lit. [insipidity], absurdity, insulsitas (Job 1:22), a contemptuous expression which seems very suitable here, serving as it does to describe tersely the violence of the wicked, mocking at the moral order of the universe, and still remaining unpunished. The punctuation , prayer, supplication (Pesh., some MSS.) [Con., Noyes, Good, Elzas], may also be properly passed by without consideration. In regard to the absolute use of (supply , comp. Job 22:22), he regards not, see Job 4:20; Isa 41:20; and especially Psa 50:23, where, precisely as here, the expression is construed with the accus. of the object. [The rendering of E. V.: yet God layeth (=imputeth) not folly to them, is not essentially different, but is less expressive. Oppression ravages the earth; in the wilderness, among rocks and caves, in fields and vineyards, in villages and cities, men suffer, groan, dieand all this chaotic folly, this dark anomaly, this mockery of the Divine orderGod heeds it not!E.]
4. Second Division: Second Half: Job 24:13-25. Continuation of the preceding description, in which special prominence is given to those evildoers who commit their crimes in secret, and escape for a long time the divine punishment, which surely awaits them.
Eighth Strophe: Job 24:13-17. Those (, emphatically contrasting the present objects of the description, as a new class of evil-doers, with those previously mentioned) are rebels against the light, or: are become rebels, etc.; for so may the clause with essential, comp. Job 23:13) be taken, unless we prefer to explain: are become among apostates from the light, i. e. have acquired the nature of such (Del., Dillm.) [in either case is not the mere copula, but expresses a process of becoming]. , apostates, revolters from the light, enemies of the light, are essentially the same, as children of the night (Rom 13:12; 1Th 5:5; Eph 5:8, etc.Will not know its ways; i. e. the ways of the light, for it is more natural to refer the suffix in , as well as in to than to God.
Job 24:14. At the dawn (, sub lucem, cum diluculo, toward the break of day, before it is yet broad daylight) the murderer riseth up. , one who makes a trade of murder, who kills to steal, like the English garotter; for the wealthy oppressor is no longer (down to Job 24:18) the subject of the discourse.[He slays the poor and needy: because of their defenceless condition; not of course for plunder, but to gratify his bloodthirsty disposition.]And in the night he acts like a thief, or: he becomes as the thief, i. e. in the depths of night, when there is no one to cross his path, he plies the trade of a petty, common thief, committing burglary, etc. for the Jussive instead of , comp. above Job 18:12; Job 20:23, etc. [poetic form]; and for , instead of , Job 23:9.
Job 24:15. And the adulterers eye watches (, observare, to be on the watch for, to lurk for) the twilight, i. e. the evening twilight, before the approach of which he does not ply his craft; comp. Pro 7:9. here crepusculum; see above on Job 3:9And puts a veil over the face: lit. and lays on a covering of the face, i. e., some kind of a veil;hardly a mask, of which oriental antiquity had no knowledge; comp. Delitzsch on the passage.
Job 24:16. They break in the dark into houses; lit. he, or one breaks in; the indefinite subj. of , is, as the plurals in the following members show, an entire band of thieves.They, who by day keep themselves shut up, know not the light, i. e. they have no fellowship with it, as children of night and of darkness. The rendering of the Targ. and of some of the Rabbis (approximately also of the Vulg.) [also of E. V.]: which houses) they had marked for themselves in the daytime, is opposed by the fact that signifies always obsignare, never designare; comp. Job 14:17; Job 37:7.
Job 24:17. For to them all deep darkness is morning; i. e. when the deepest darkness of the night (, comp. Job 3:5) begins, then they enter upon their days work [the drawing on of the night is to them what day-break is to others]a striking characteristic of the , in which these evil-doers engage. Umbreit and Hirzel [and so E. V. Ber., Con.] unsuitably take not , but as subject: the morning is to them at once deep darkness. Against this explanation it may be urged that means not at once, but as in Job 2:11; Job 9:32, etc., all together, all in a body.Because they know the terrors of deep darkness; i. e. are familiar with them, as other men are with the open day; comp. Job 24:16 e; Job 38:16. The sing, again makes its appearance here [ , lit. for he (or one) knows, etc.], because stress is laid on the fact that every member of this wicked band has this familiarity with the darkness of night. [According to the rendering of E. V., Hirzel, etc., here rejected, the meaning would be that morning or daylight would bring terror to these evil-doers, the fear i. e. of being detected and condemned. In the second member would then be antecedent, either general: when one can discern (Con.), or particular: if one know them (E. V.) and , the consequentterrors of death-shade! The other rendering, however, has on the whole the advantage of greater simplicity, and agreement with usage and the context.E.]
Ninth Strophe: Job 24:18-21. The judgment which will overtake the wicked who have been thus far described. This judgment Job describes here proleptically, for in Job 24:22-24 a he returns once again to their haughty, insolent conduct before the judgment comes, in order to bring out the thought that a long time usually elapses before it overtakes them. This strophe sets forth, in the first place, and this intentionally in strong language, which in the mouth of Job is quite surprising, that a grievous punishment and certain destruction infallibly awaits them; but that such destruction, for the most part, is long delayed, is maintained in the following strophe, which, however, in Job 24:24 again resumes the description of the destruction. The language does not permit us with the LXX., Vulg., Pesh., Eichh., Dathe, Umbr., Vaih, etc., to take these verses in an optative sense, as a description of the punishment, which ought to befal evil-doers: thus at the outset in Job 24:18 we have , not ; and so throughout every sign of the optative form of speech is wanting. It is possible, but the same is not indicated with sufficient clearness by the author, and for that reason is altogether too artificial, to take vers 1821 (with Ewald, Hirzel, Schlottm., v. Gerlach, Heiligstedt, Dillmann) as a description of the well-merited judgment inflicted on the wicked, ironically attributed by Job to his opponents, Jobs own opinion on the opposite side being in that case annexed to it in Job 24:22 seq. See against this opinion, as well as against the related opinion of Stickel, Bttcher, Hahn, etc., the remarks of Delitzsch [Job 2:33: (1) There is not the slightest trace observable in Job 24:18-21 that Job does not express his own view. (2) There is no such decided contrast between Job 24:18-21 and Job 24:22-25, for Job 24:19 and Job 24:24 both affirm substantially the same thing concerning the end of the evil-doer. In like manner it is not to be supposed with Stickel, Lw., Bttch., Welte and Hahn, that Job, outstripping the friends, as far as Job 24:21, describes how the evil-doer certainly often comes to a terrible end, and in Job 24:22 seq., how the very opposite of this, however, is often witnessed; so that this consequently furnishes no evidence in support of the exclusive assertion of the friends. Moreover, Job 24:24 compared with Job 24:19, where there is nothing to indicate a direct contrast, is opposed to it; and Job 24:22, which has no appearance of referring to a direct contrast with what has been previously said, is opposed to such an antithetical rendering of the two final strophes.]
Job 24:18. His course is swift on the face of the waters: i. e. lightly and swiftly is he born hence, as one who is swept away irresistibly by the flood; comp. Job 9:26; Hos 10:7. [Carey curiously conjectures that this ver. speaks of pirates!]Accursed is their portion in the land; or: a curse befals, etc. (Dillm.). [In German: Im Fluge ist er dahin auf Wassers Flche; verflucht wird ihr Grundstck im Lande; or according to Dillmann: Flucht trifft, etc., whereby, continues Zckler, the paronomasia between and is still more clearly expressed. This paronomasia it is impossible to reproduce in English without slightly paraphrasing the one term or the other. The above attempts to combine the verbal play with fidelity to the German original: his course is swift for im Fluge dahin, and accursed for verflucht.] Whether a divine curse, or a curse on the part of men, is intended, seems doubtful: still parallel passages, such as Job 5:3; Job 18:20, favor the latter view. The interchange of plur. and sing. occurs here as in Job 24:16.He enters no more on the way of the Vineyard; lit. he turns no more into the way to the vineyard (comp. 1Sa 13:18); i. e. there is an end of his frequent resorting to his favorite possession, and in general of his enjoyment of the same. Observe that from here on wealthy evil-doers again form the prominent subject of the description; in this differing from Job 24:13-17.
Job 24:19. Drought and heat carry off [ lit. bear away as plunder] the snow-water (comp. Job 6:16 seq.): so the underworld those who have sinned., a relative clause, which is at the same time the object of the verb in the first member, which extends its influence also to the second member. As to the sentiment, comp. Psa 49:13 [12] 21 [20]; also Job 24:18 a; not however Job 21:23, where rather the euthanasia [of the subject] is described, not his sudden end without deliverance.
Job 24:20. The womb forgets him, (whereas) the worms feed sweetly on him.The two short sentences which constitute this member stand in blunt contrast to each other. here sensu activo: to taste anything with pleasure, delectari aliquare (lit. to suckhence the meaning sweet). So then is iniquity broken like the tree(i. e. like a shattered, or felled tree; comp. Ecc 11:3; Dan 4:7 seq.; also above Job 19:10). Instead of the wicked man his injurious conduct (, comp. on Job 5:16) is here mentioned as having come to an end, while Job 24:21 again speaks in the concrete concerning the evil-doer himself, in order to point to his heinous bloodguiltiness as the cause of his punishment. [The fundamental thought of the strophe is this, that neither in life nor in death had he suffered the punishment of his evil-doing. The figure of the broken tree (broken in its full vigor) also corresponds to this thought; comp. on the other hand what Bildad says, Job 18:16 : his roots dry up beneath, and above his branch is lopped off (or: withered). The severity of his oppression is not manifest till after his death. Delitzsch].
Job 24:21. He who hath plundered (lit. fed upon, devoured, comp. Job 20:26) the barren, that beareth not (who has therefore no children to protect her), and hath done no good to the widowbut on the contrary has shown himself hard of heart towards her. On the form comp. Gesen. 70 [ 69], 2, Rem. [Green, 150, 2] [The Participial form introducing the characteristics of the class, and followed by finite verb according to Gesen. 131, Rem. 2].
Tenth Strophe: Job 24:22-25. And yet He preserveth long the men of might by His strengthi. e., but truly ( before is at once adversative and restrictive). He (God, comp. Job 24:23) often greatly prolongs the life of such mighty evil-doers (, comp. Isa 46:12) [the strong, who bid defiance not only to every danger, (Psa 76:6) but also to all divine influences and noble impulses. Delitzsch]. On as applied to the agency of God in prolonging life comp. Isa 13:22; Psa 36:11; Psa 85:6 [5]. Such an one rises up again, although despairing of lifewhen he had already despaired of continuing in life. [So far from using his power to crush the mighty villains of earth, God uses it to bring them triumphantly through those crises in which they themselves had given up all hopeE.] subordinate circumstantial clause, comp. Ewald, 341, a., Aramaizing plur. like , Job 4:2. [According to E. V. and most commentators the subject of Job 24:22 is still the wicked man, being taken to mean: to draw, drag as a captive; or to hold, bind; or to destroy. He subjugates the mighty, and puts all in terror for their very life. The interpretation given above however is more in accord with the proper meaning of , with Job 24:23 understood as having God for its subject; and is specially favored by the consideration that it gives more distinct expression to the thought, so important to Jobs argument here of the lengthening out of the life and prosperity of the evil-doer, and of the long delay of his punishment. The omission of the Divine Name is so characteristic of our book as to present no difficulty.E.].
Job 24:23. He grants him safety (lit. He (God) grants to him to be in safety; permits him to be at his ease [, adverbial, of the state or condition He grants him to be in]; so that he is sustained (, expressing the consequence of that divine grant of security), and His (Gods) eyes are upon their waysin order, namely, to keep them therein, and to bless and protect them; comp. , Job 10:3. [Gods eyes, says Job, follow the prosperous evil-doer with watchful interest, to see that he does not step out of the path of security and success! According to the other interpretation, which continues the evil-doer as the subject, the meaning is that the oppressor allows to those who are in his power only a transient respite, watching for every pretence or opportunity to injure them. See Scott. The full-toned suffix seems chosen for emphasis.E.].
Job 24:24. They rise higha little while only, and they are gone. , 3 Plur. Perf. from =, to raise oneself, to mount upward (Ew. 114 a; comp. Gesen. 67 [ 66] Rem. 1 [Green, 139, 1], with following for the consequent, forms a short sentence by itself, as in Psa 37:10. As to then he is no more, comp. Gen 5:24. The interchange of numbers as in Job 24:16 and Job 24:18. And they are bowed down (concerning [Aramaizing] Hoph. from , comp. Gesen. 67 [ 66], Rem. 1); like all they perish (i. e. like all others), and as the top of the ears [of grain: i. e. the grain-bearing head of the wheat-stalk] they wither., lit. they shrivel together (Niph. Reflex. from Kal; comp. Job 5:16) i. e., they perish. There is no reference to the componere artus of the dead [Ges. to gather oneself up, composing the body and limbs as in death, which here would mean to die in the course of nature, not by violence, or suddenly], nor to the housing, i. e. the burial of the dead (comp. Eze 29:5). The expression is rather a figure taken from vegetable life, like the following , they wither like the heads of grain; see on Job 42:2. [It may be claimed with reason that the connection here favors the definition, to be cut off, the oriental custom of reaping being to cut off the tops, leaving long stalks standing in the field.] It is not altogether in the sense of euthanasia, therefore, of an easy, painless death, as described in Job 21:23, that the present passage is to be understood (against Ewald, Dillmann, etc., also Del.). It rather resumes the description in Job 24:18 seq., although in less forcible language, and in such a way as to set forth a natural death, such as all die, rather than that caused by a divine judgment, such as often falls upon the wicked.
Job 24:25. And should it not be so ( as in Job 9:24) who will convict me of falsehood, and make my speech of no effect?The phrase (instead of which Symm., Vulg., Pesh. read ) is precisely the same with , or our: bring to nought, comp. Ewald, 286, g; 321, b. The whole question is a triumphant expression of the superiority which Job vividly felt himself to possess over his opponents, especially in the views derived from experience which he had just urged respecting the incomprehensible dealings of God with the destinies of men.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The significance of the present discourse of Job lies essentially in its descriptive treatment of ethical and anthropological themes, some passages even describing matters of interest in the history of civilization (Job 24:5 seq.), whereas the speculative and theological element becomes subordinate. The latter is restricted almost exclusively to the first and shorter Division, which is occupied with the mystery of Jobs own destiny of suffering, just as the second Division is occupied with the obverse side of this mystery, the prosperity and impunity of the wicked. That which the first Division says touching the inexplicableness of his sufferings is substantially only a repetition of the wish, already several times uttered, that God by His personal intervention might decide the controversy, and confirm his innocence, combined with a statement of the reasons why this wish could not be realized. On the first of these reasons, to wit: that on account of the overwhelming majesty pertaining to the appearance of God, the Unapproachable and Almighty One, it would be impossible for him to put in his answer before Him (Job 23:6) he does not dwell this time as on two former occasions (Job 9:34; Job 13:21); he merely touches it with suggestive brevity. His consciousness of innocence is too strong to allow him to give way long to this thought; thanks to the incessant assaults and accusations of the friends, it has become consolidated and strengthened to such a degree that in Job 19. (as indeed had been the case before here and there, especially in Job 16:17; Job 17:9) it even found utterance in decided exaggeration, and drove him to extreme assertions touching his absolute blamelessness and immaculateness, for which he must hereafter implore pardon. Among these assertions we find the following: that he would come forth out of Gods trial of him like gold, that he would never swerve from His ways, that he had always observed the words of His mouth more than his own law (Job 23:10-12). All the more emphatic however is the stress which he lays on the other reasons why that wish seems to him incapable of realization. God, he thinks, purposely withdraws Himself from him. It is deliberately and with good reason that He keeps Himself at a distance and hidden from him, it being now His settled purpose to make him drain his cup of suffering to the dregs (Job 23:13 seq.). [Jobs suspicion against God is as dreadful as it is childish. This is a profoundly tragic stroke. It is not to be understood as the sarcasm of defiance; on the contrary, as one of the childish thoughts into which melancholy bordering on madness falls. From the bright height of faith to which Job soars in Job 19:25 seq., he is here again drawn down into the most terrible depth of conflict, in which, like a blind man, he gropes after God, and because he cannot find Him thinks that He flees before him lest He should be overcome by him. The God of the present Job accounts his enemy; and the God of the future to whom his faith clings, who will and must vindicate him so soon as He only allows Himself to be found and seenthis God is not to be found. Delitzsch.]. It is not the invisible essence of God in general, not that He cannot be discovered by those who seek Him on earth east or west, north or south (Job 19:8-9)it is not the pure spirituality and the divine omnipresence, which extinguishes his hope in Gods interposition to vindicate and to redeem him. The thought of that divine unsearchableness, which he beautifully describes in a way that reminds us of Psa 139:7-9, as well as of Zophars first discourse (Job 11:8-9), could have had nothing terrible or cheerless for him. Just as little (as he expressly declares in the closing verse of the First Part, Job 23:17) would the contemplation of his woful physical condition, and the tragical calamities of his outward life have sufficed to plunge him into the fear of death and dumb despair. That which fills him with dismay and terror, that which makes his heart faint, and removes the prospect of his deliverance to the indefinite future, is that same predestinatianism, that same dread of a mysterious, inexorable, and as regards himself malign decree of God, which had already extorted repeatedly from him a cry of lamentation, and which had formed the dark back-ground which so often emerges behind his meditations thus far (comp. Job 6:9 seq.; Job 7:12 seq.; Job 9:22 sqq.; Job 10:13 seq.; Job 13:15 seq.; Job 16:12 sq.; Job 19:6 seq.). No comforting, brightening, alleviating thought, no joyous soaring of hope in Gods compassion, bringing help however late, is to be seen anywhere in this discourse, as was the case e. g. in Job 17. and 19. On the contrary the Second Division of the discourse lays out before us a much wider circle of phenomena and sentiments at variance with a righteous and merciful activity on the part of God. The experience which he had, or believed that he had, of Gods treatment of him as unsympathetic and harsh, as being a mere exhibition of divine power, without the slightest trace of justice or fatherly kindnessthis experience he utters in the general proposition: that God had appointed no times of judgment, would let His friends see no days on this earth in which He would exercise righteous retribution (Job 24:1). This proposition he expands into an eloquent description of the manifold injustice, which men of the most diverse classes inflict on one another, while the wrongs of the outraged and oppressed weaker party are never redressed or avenged (Job 24:2 seq). Toward the end of this picture, which is true in a sense, although one-sided in its tendency, he changes his tone somewhat to be sure, and by strongly emphasizing the certainty that a rigid judgment of God will at the last terminate the course of the wicked (Job 24:18-21; Job 24:24), qualifies the preceding accusation against the divine justice. Even this however is by no means a surrender to the doctrine of a retribution in this life, as taught by the friends. The chief emphasis even in this passage rests rather on the long delay ( Job 24:22 a) in interposing for such punishment, on the long duration of their impunity from punishment, or even on the not uncommon prolongation of this state down to their natural death, to which they are subject in common with all men (Job 24:24; see on the ver.). Job here certainly concedes something to his opponents, essentially however not much more than he had conceded already in Job 21. where ( Job 21:17 seq.; Job 21:23 seq.) without denying the fact of the final punishment of the ungodly, he had represented it as much more commonly the case that they were spared any judicial inflictions down to the end of their life. The triumphant exclamation with which he ends his speech: who will convict me of falsehood? is intended simply to confirm this fact of experience, in accordance with which this impunitas hominum sceleratorum is the general rule, whereas their justa punitio is the exception, at least in this world.
2. Job however does concede somewhat more here than there; he at least dwells longer on the punishment of the ungodly, as a fact which is not altogether unheard of in the course of human destinywhether the passage in which he describes it be only a free quotation of the language of his opponents, as the later commentators in part exclaim (see on Job 24:18 seq.), of the expression of his own conviction. And this indicates clearly enough progress for the better in his temper of mind and mode of thought, a progress which is still further indicated by the fact that in the preceding description of God as restraining Himself in the infliction of punishment a calm tone of objective description has a decided predominance, and nothing more is to be discerned of his former passionate, at times even blasphemous complaints touching the tyrannical harshness and cruel vindictiveness of the Almighty in persecuting him with poisoned arrows, sword-thrusts, and merciless scourgings. The terrible fatalistic phantom of a God exercising only His power, and not also His justice and love, which had formerly tortured him, has unmistakably assumed a milder form, of a less threatening aspect than heretofore. In consequence of this, as well as by virtue of the calm dignity which enables him to meet with complete serenity the violent assaults and detractions of Eliphaz, and to avoid all controversy of a bttter personal character, his superiority over his opponents becomes ever more apparent, his statements and arguments drive with ever greater directness at the only possible solution of the controversy, and even where he is one-sided, as particularly in his description, in many respects impressive, of the course of the wicked, and of the needy ones whom they persecute (Job 24:2-17), his discussion has great value, and a fascinating power which is all the stronger by virtue of the comparatively calm objective tone of the treatment. It is in these indications of the growing purity and clearness of the sufferers spiritual frame, that the practical and homiletic lessons of the present section can be most advantageously studied.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Job 23:3 seq.Oecolampadius (on Job 23:7): This word disputing or reproving expresses confidence rather than impatience or an unfavorable estimate of God. But if we blame this in Job, we must also blame what John and others say; if our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And wherefore does Christ command us to lift up our heads at His coming? Zeyss: Faith and a good conscience are the two chief jewels of a Christian (1Ti 1:5). Happy he who has kept these. When oppressed he can appear with confidence before God.
Job 23:8 seq. Brentius: Although God fills all things, and is all in all, we cannot approach Him, nor find Him without a Mediator; whether we seek Him before or behind, to the right hand or to the left, He is always afar off, we never lay hold upon Him. For even if we should attempt to approach Him without a mediator, we are deterred from having access to Him in part by the darkness in which He dwells, in part by His power and majesty, in part by His justice.
Job 23:13 seq. Zeyss: As God is one in His nature, so also is He unchangeable in His will (Num 23:19; 1Sa 15:29). Let us therefore submit ourselves in humility and obedience to His good and holy will! The cross which He lays upon us is always less than our sins deserve; His chastisements are tempered with mercy; Psa 103:10.v. Gerlach (on Job 23:17): In the consciousness of the treatment which he receives from the incomprehensible God, who has irrevocably determined every mans destiny, Job is penetrated by the profoundest terror before this God. It is not his calamity in itself, not even his own experience of the extremity to which this calamity has brought him from which he shrinks. What a deep glance is here given us into the heart of a sorely tried servant of God, who in his complaints and struggles, spite of all suffering, thinks only of God, and fears nothing so much as that the fellowship of his God having been withdrawn from him, his God should become a terror to him.
Job 24:2 seq. Wohlfarth: How should the contemplation of the unnumbered sins, with which Gods fair earth is stained, affect us? Job was led thereby into temptation to doubt Gods justice. Let it not be so with us, who, enlightened by Christ, should see therein rather: (a) a melancholy proof of the continual inclination of our nature to evil, and of the slothfulness of our spirit to strive against the same; (b) a touching evidence of the long-suffering and patience of God; (c) an earnest warning to be on our guard against every temptation; (d) an emphatic reminder of the day of judgment, which will recompense every man according to his works.
Job 24:17. Starke: As works of the light are accompanied by a joyful conscience and good courage, so on the other hand with works of darkness there is nothing but fear, anguish and terror. For even the abandoned are not without an inward punishment in the conscience.V. Gerlach: For sinners, who shun the light, the light of day itself is darkness, since through their departure from the eternal light of God, they bear about with them night in their souls (comp. Mat 6:23; Joh 11:10), and thus they feel its terrors even in the midst of the brightness of the day.
Job 24:23 seq. Starke: Be not secure, if a sin passes unpunished; it is not on that account forgotten by God. The happier the ungodly are for a time, the more dangerous is their condition, and the more severely will they be punished at last.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The general scope of Job’s reasoning in this chapter, is much to the same purport as he had before made use of; namely, that from the outward circumstances, either of the wicked or the righteous, no right judgment could be formed to draw conclusions concerning either.
Job 24:1
(1) Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days?
Job opens the subject with a pertinent question, which is as much as to say, If you think that riches and prosperity are sure marks of GOD’S favor, and the reverse, in poverty and adversity, the evident indications of his displeasure; on what principle consistent with this maxim, will you make it appear, how it is that the knowledge and love of GOD, in the discernment of his ways, do not keep pace with it?
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 24:8
In his Week on the Concord (Tuesday), Thoreau quotes this passage from Belknap, the historian of the State, upon the mountains and the rain: ‘In the mountainous parts of the country the ascent of vapours, and their formation into clouds, is a curious and entertaining object. The vapours are seen rising in small columns like smoke from many chimneys. When risen to a certain height, they spread, meet, condense, and are attracted to the mountains where they either distil in gentle dews, and replenish the springs, or descend in showers, accompanied by thunder. After short intermissions, the process is repeated many times in the course of a summer day, affording to travellers a lively illustration of what is observed in the book of Job “They are wet with the showers of the mountains”.’
Job 24:12
I see every day in the world a thousand acts of oppression which I should like to resent, but I cannot afford to play the Quixote. Why are the English to be the sole vindicators of the human race? Ask Mr. Meynell how many persons there are within fifteen miles of him who deserve to be horsewhipped, and who would be very much improved by such a process. But every man knows he must keep down his feelings, and endure the spectacle of triumphant folly and tyranny.
Sydney Smith to Mrs. Meynell (in 1823).
Job 24:16
What have they, ‘i.e. the wicked,’ to supply their innumerable defects, and to make them terrible even to the firmest minds? One thing, and one thing only but that one thing is worth a thousand they have energy.
Burke, Remarks on Policy of Allies.
Speaking once of a robbery, Sydney Smith observed: ‘It is Bacon, I think, who says so beautifully, “He that robs in darkness breaks God’s lock”. How fine that is.’
References. XXIV. 18. J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Church Year, vol. ii. p. 202.
Job 24:23-24
Without any touch of envy, a temperate and well-governed mind looks down on such as are exalted with success, with a certain shame for the imbecility of human nature, that can so far forget how liable it is to calamity, as to grow giddy with only the suspense of sorrow, which is the portion of all men.
Steele in The Spectator (No. 312).
Whence Did Job Draw His Pictures?
Job 24:25
Job has once more protested his innocence of any conscious offence that could have drawn down God’s anger; and once more, with an almost passionless calm, he has followed out, to their terrible result, the suggestions of his friends, and the promptings of his own bewildered brain.
I. If God’s justice is to be measured, as his friends tell him, by the measure of happiness or of misery dealt out to every man on this earthly scene, then it is an evil world, and Job has a weight on his soul, heavier than any burden which his own pain or misery can lay upon him. For the world is a scene of suffering, oppression, violence, and wrong; and the conclusion to which this points is very terrible. You see at once its full force; you see how he lays his hand, this saint of the Old Testament, on the world-old problem of the existence of evil.
II. The author of the book must have been familiar, as we see, with phases of experience that lay beyond the circle of Arab life. The crowded city, the very factory, we might almost say, the miseries of the cultivators of field and vineyard, the hard usurer, the oppressed and toiling masses these are pictures which can hardly have fallen on his mental retina from a mere effort of the imagination. From what age, from what scene, we ask, and ask in vain, comes this mysterious figure of the Arab patriarch?
III. The question occurs with increasing interest as we listen to his words, words that are the expression of no extinct or obsolete range of ideas, but of feelings that are as strong and living today, in and outside the crowded capitals of Europe, as they were when they first found utterance. What a fresh force they lend to the words of Him to whom the poor man’s cause was dear. ‘The poor ye have always with you.’
G. G. Bradley, Lectures on the Book of Job, p. 212.
References. XXV. 2. J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 1874, p. 72. XXV. 3. J. M. Neale, Sermons for Some Feast Days in the Christian Year, p. 271.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Moral Antiquity
Job 24
Here we have a wonderful portrayal of wickedness. Some men attach great importance to antiquity: why should the theologian be excluded from that field of interest and study? Literary men often have a passion for antiquity, to discover a new word, or to be able to discover possible relations of old words, makes them wild with delight; to know that some book has been exhumed which only scholars can read is indeed a festival to the truly literary mind. This love of antiquity operates in various ways. Some men are fond of old coins. Half-crowns have been purchased by numismatists for as much as fifty sovereigns. So old age has some advantages. We must have antiquity. This love of antiquity shows itself sometimes in quite frivolous ways; but, still, there it is. There are persons who write their names with two little fs. They think it has quite a Plantagenet sort of look about it, not knowing that in the antiquity which they all but adore men wrote two little f’s because they did not know how to write a capital. What matter? There is an antiquity about it that is quite soothing, and deeply satisfactory. Some persons like to trace their origin far back into historical times; others are bold enough to go back as far even as Adam and Eve; and there are others of another mental metal who are not content with that origin, and who go immeasurably beyond it, sacrificing family pride with the most abject humbleness. But what does it amount to, so long as there is the charm of antiquity, the hoar of countless ages, the moss which only rocks could gather? Why, then, should the theologian be excluded, let us ask again, from this field of inquiry, so broad and charming?
The Book of Job is confessedly one of the most ancient books in all literature; it cannot, therefore, fail to be interesting to know the character of wickedness as drawn by so ancient a portrayer of manners and customs. Is wickedness the same yesterday, today, and for ever? Did it begin quite innocently, so to say, and as it were by incalculable accidents fall into evil behaviour? Is its evil reputation rather a misfortune than a fault? Or was it always as bad as the devil could make it? Did it start badly? Is it a hell-flower? Are its roots fed by forces that minister in perdition? If some modern man had sketched the character of evil we should have said, History is against him: if you search back into the far-away ages you will find that the portraiture is overdrawn, it is an exaggeration amounting almost to an injustice. Here, however, we have Job as a witness. As to the antiquity of this testimony, there is no doubt amongst any body of intelligent men. It is something, therefore, to have a worm-eaten document, the ink almost faded, and yet the letters quite traceable, so that there can be no dispute as to what it really says. It comes to us with the authority of thousands of years. Let us look at it a little.
Though the testimony is ancient, yet it is modern. See what wicked men did long ago
“Some remove the landmarks: they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof. They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow’s ox for a pledge. They turn the needy out of the way: the poor of the earth hide themselves together…. They reap every one his corn in the field: and they gather the vintage of the wicked. They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of shelter. They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor” ( Job 24:2-9 ).
And so the evil testimony rolls on like a black and pestilent stream. In all our development we keep closely to this line. We know it. We do not turn from this portrait as from a caricature that shocks our sense of justice and truth; we read the words as if we had written them. Who ever stands aghast at the delineation, and protests in the name of human nature that such things are impossible to man? No critic has ever done so; no etymologist has ever so changed the terms as to change the reputation; no moralist has ever said that he could not read the delineation of wickedness in the Book of Job without feeling that it was overwrought, untrue, and unjust. Let us see what they did. “They drive away the ass of the fatherless.” The sting is in that last dreary word. They would not have ventured to drive away the ass of those whose father was living, A beautiful word is the word “father.” It has been traced back to two little letters pronounced by sweet children now, and sometimes unwisely smiled at or put down. The root of the word is pa. Let us be etymologically correct. What does “father” mean? It does not signify mere descent of a physiological kind, as father and son, but it signifies protector, defender; it bears with it the meaning of might that can resist all assault, security that will itself die before the thing secured can be violated. But in ancient times wicked men drove away the ass of the fatherless: the protector was gone, so the property must follow; there was no strong man to stand in the front, and say, No: not until you have overthrown me can you touch that which belongs to my children. The great hedge of security was broken down, and strong wicked men had rushed in upon the defenceless, and wrought havoc amongst those whose father was dead. Is that done now? Are any liberties taken now with the fatherless? Has a child to pay for orphanage? Has the devil changed his character? Then again “They turn the needy out of the way.” It is always the needy man who has to suffer: he cannot conduct a long fight; he cannot run a long race; his poverty always comes to stop him, entangle him, and otherwise render him a prey to those who are rich and proud. This miracle of poverty, this eternal mystery of want, what is it? We cannot be lectured out of it, economised out of it, scientifically conducted out of it; there stands the ghastly spectre, age after age, an apparently immovable and indestructible presence. A man may be wise, but he suffers through his want of means; he may have genius to plan a bridge that should span a broad river, but he has no money with which to dig foundations and throw the arch across the running flood. A poor man may have books in his head, whole libraries of thought and poetry, vision and dream that would bless the world; but the publisher politely, time permitting, shows him to the door because he cannot pay for paper and print. The needy man must have his day. Surely there will come a time when he will be able to stand up and state his cause, and plead it, and show that he could have done greater things in the world but for his poverty. Is any advantage taken of the needy now? Are they all spoken to with courteous civility? Do men move to them as to equals? Are they invited to the feast? When thou makest a feast, who are thy guests, thou Christian man? Is there boundless room outside, in the snow of the winter and the floods of the autumn, for the needy, and must they make their bed in the morass and cling to the rock for shelter? Has the Ethiopian changed his skin? Is wickedness the same now as it was in ancient days? Let facts bear witness. There is no originality in wickedness; in substance it is the same yesterday, today, and for ever. The Bible has named every sin. Invention is dead; novelty is impossible; you cannot originate a new sin. If there is one man above another, prince of the philologists of the day, it is Professor Max Mller. He says that language as to its root and core has never changed. Whoever the first speaker was, we are speaking his language now. Say Adam was our ancestor in speech; then, says the Professor, we are speaking Adam’s language now. Say that we trace our language back to Shem, Ham, and Japheth; then we are speaking their language at this day. There is no novelty in the roots of the language. Declensions, conjugations, variations, accidental changes many, showing themselves fruitfully in all advancing civilisation; but the root is the same; there is no substantial novelty. You may have thrust the accent forward or backward; you may have added syllables; you may have twisted words, and changed their momentary colour or their passing value: but as to the root of the language, he who spoke first speaks now. There is a great moral in that philological lesson. The core of wickedness never changes. We can invent new accidents, new circumstances which endure but for a moment, we are cleverer in secondary matters; but we cannot invent a new sin, as to its root and core and plasmic meaning; these you will find in the Bible, and when the Bible reports them, it does not appear to be making a new language, but simply to be taking down a speech which filled the air even in the remotest days of biblical antiquity. It is something to know, therefore, that we have testimony to go upon that is irrefragable. We are not leaning to broken evidence, or to a chain of events in which there are faulty links; every link is faultless, strong, distinct, in its right place; so that he who would rise now and make an impeachment against wickedness has evidence enough: if he fail, blame his ineloquent tongue, and do not charge the failure upon want of proof.
How noticeable it is that crime has from the beginning been perpetrated by men from whom better things might have been expected! Take critical notice of this one fact, that the crimes which are set down here are crimes which only rich men could have committed. Such a fact is not to be passed by lightly. Only the strong men of the time could have removed the landmark, or taken away violently the flocks, or turned the needy out of the way, and driven the poor of the earth to huddle in some cold and barren obscurity. Let that fact always be remembered in speaking about the crimes of any civilisation. The greatest crimes of the world have been done by the strong, the rich, and the proud. That these crimes would have been done by the weak and the poor and the abject had circumstances been different is perfectly indisputable; the question is one of human nature and not of accidental circumstances. Is this true today? Are our rich men all refuges to which the poor may flee with hope of asylum? Are our strong men always alert, self-surrendering, never considering themselves when the cause of oppression is to be treated, and when those who would assail liberty make their boastful voices heard? Can we gather ourselves together in sacred counsel and say, Whatever happens our rich men will be at the front, and our strong men; all the men who lead us by social status, and ought to lead us by generous example, will be in the van, so that before any of us who are blind, halt, maimed, can be touched, all our foremost men must be mowed down by the scythe of the enemy. Has wickedness changed its character?
How several popular fallacies fall before such testimony as is to be found in these chapters, for example, such a fallacy as that good circumstances make good character. Give a man plenty of wealth, give him flock and herds, give him ample estates, and he will be good; he will make his fields churches, he will make his piles of gold altars, at which he will fall, that he may there offer praise to the Giver of every good gift: men would be better if they were richer, stronger. That is a deadly sophism. Look at the Bible for proof to the contrary, and at the Bible not as a professedly theological book but as a literary history, as something written by the pen of man, no matter who that man was as to his religious relations. That such wickedness as this which is detailed in the Book of Job could be dreamed, and then could be published without the author being torn to pieces by an outraged public, is a fact to be reckoned with in all this historical estimate. Then there is the fallacy that poverty and ill-behaviour always go together. There again the poor man is at a great disadvantage. It is supposed that if a man cannot read and write, therefore he must be vicious. Young reformers arise, and say, Put a schoolhouse at the corner of every street, and then the magistrate will have nothing to do. It is a misrepresentation of the poor. The rich man can do more mischief by one inscription of his pen than all the little thieves of a city can do in seven years. But how we spring at the poor man when he does anything wrong, how we hale him before the judge, and how we suppose that because his coat is torn therefore his character is bad. It is not so. The men who have most intellect and least morality can do most harm in the world. Then there is the sophism that justice is a natural instinct. It may be said to us, who are religious moralists, Trust the justice of humanity: man knows right from wrong; natural instinct will guide him: let a man yield to his instincts, and you will have no oppression of the poor, no driving of the needy into desert places, no removal of the landmarks: justice is a natural instinct; trust it. It may be a natural instinct, but it has been greatly depraved. Who has known an instance in which it has stood well to the front without having a background sufficiently mysterious to be designated religious? No, not until he came who touched the sphere of motive, the region of spiritual thought, were men really just to one another. Even those who profess his name and pray at his cross often fail now, but what would they have done but for such association with his kingdom and such sacrifice at the tree on which he died! We have no justice. If we ever had it we have lost, so to say, its very instinct and use. We need to be recovered from the error of our ways. Our very morality may have been an arrangement, an investment, a new game in doing the work of life. To be real we must be born again; to be truly just we must adjust our relations with God and to God. No man can love his neighbour as himself until he loves God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength. Prosperity divorced from morality is the curse of any age and people. Riches are only blessings when they are held by the hand of justice and controlled by the spirit of benevolence.
Here, then, is the character of wickedness. An old character. Who will adopt it? Who will wear these ancient clothes? Come, ye who are fond of antiquity; you like old hoary time: who will adopt this moral antiquity, and wear it, and be proud of it? Who will set this cap upon his head, and say, Behold me, venerable in unrighteousness? Is there any man who will voluntarily take up this character and say it is his? Do we not rather seem to read it as an old piece of literature, a very vivid and graphic story, with which, however, we would have no connection, further than a mere perusal of the dreary tale? When the wicked man plays his evil pranks, let him know what his character is; it is not for him to write it history has undertaken that work for him: every line of his character is already written, and he cannot change it. Why, as we have just seen, we cannot change a word radically and substantially: how then can we change a moral act? In law the sound rule is, that which was bad at the beginning is bad through all the process, and in theology and morals the same law holds good. Wickedness cannot change itself, cannot invent for itself a new speech or a new hypocrisy; from the beginning the father of the wicked was a liar and a murderer. A very broad and true saying that which is found on the highest authority in the Book of God: from the beginning he was a murderer: he could not become a murderer; he was at the beginning, in his very genesis, in his very protoplasm, a man-slayer, an enemy of human life. Behold the chivalry of wicked men, the bravery, the generous civility, the signature of heaven, this, as recorded in history, is what they are and what they have done! The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, nor the leper his spots, and if ever this wickedness is to be rubbed out it must be by the blood the life of God with us. Can we overturn old history in one day? Is all this ancient stream to be cleansed out of human history by some majestic waving of the hand on the part of some inexperienced or adventurous reformer? Why dwell upon this iniquity, upon the blackness and the depth of this horrid stream? To show that the gospel spreads itself over the whole occasion, and comes to it clothed with the almightiness of God. Blessed be God, if we speak of the antiquity of sin we can also speak of the antiquity of grace: where sin abounded grace did much more abound, even in this matter of antiquity. We know that antiquity, and its value; we are not about to dispute it; old age must always be spoken of with carefulness, and sometimes it may prove itself to be worthy of honour: therefore, make it a question of antiquity, and how well the gospel stands! Does sin abound in antiquity? Grace aboundeth much more. How can that be proved? Because the Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the world. He died in the unreckoned eternity. He foresaw all the evil. He anticipated it. The cross was a historical event, but the sacrifice was old as eternity as venerable as unbeginning time.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
(See the Job Book Comments for Introductory content and general conclusions and observations).
VII
THE THIRD ROUND OF SPEECHES
Job 22-26.
Eliphaz’s third speech consists of three parts: Job 22:1-4 ; Job 22:5-20 ; Job 22:21-30 .
The subject of part one (Job 22:1-4 ) is: God’s dealings with men not for selfish interests, And the main points are:
1. A man who is wise may be profitable to himself, but not to God.
2. Man’s happiness cannot add to God’s happiness, because that resides in himself.
3. Man’s piety does not provoke affliction from God, for he does not fear man nor is he jealous of man. The subject of part two (Job 22:5-20 ) and the status of the case in general, are expressed thus:
Your wickedness is the cause of your suffering. For the first time Eliphaz now leaves insinuations, intimations, and generalities, and, in response to Job’s repeated challenge comes to specifications, which he cannot know to be true and cannot’ prove. This is the difficult part of all prosecutions, viz: to specify and to prove) as the Latin proverb expresses it: Hie labor, hoc opus est. The breakdown of Eliphaz on this point prepares the way for Job’s speedy triumph. Bildad dares not follow on the same line; all the wind is taken out of his sails; he relapses into vague generalities and with lame brevity repeats himself. Zophar who has the closing speech of the prosecution, is so completely whipped, that he makes no rejoinder. It is a tame windup of a great discussion, confessing advertising defeat.
The specifications of Eliphaz’s charges against Job are:
l. Thou hast taken pledges of thy brother for nought (Job 22:6 a). (For the heinousness of this offense see later legislation, viz: Exo 22:26 ; Deu 24:6 ; Deu 24:17 ; and the reference in Eze 18:16 .)
2. Thou hast stripped the naked of their clothing (Job 22:6 b).
3. Thou hast withheld water and bread from the famishing, and all this when thou hadst the earth and wast honorable in it (Job 22:7-8 ).
4. Thou hast refused the pleadings of necessitous widows and robbed helpless orphans [See Job’s final pathetic and eloquent reply in Job 31 , where he sums up the case and closes the defense], therefore snares, fear, and darkness have come upon thee like a flood of waters (Job 22:9-11 ).
5. These were presumptuous and blasphemous sins because you argued that God could not see you, denying his omniscience (Job 22:12-14 ).
6. You have imitated the antediluvians who, ungrateful for divine mercies, bade God depart and denied his power and who therefore were swallowed up by the flood becoming an object lesson to future ages and a joy to the righteous (Job 22:15-20 ). (Cf. 2Pe 2:4-15 and Jud 1:6-16 .)
The passage, Job 22:21-30 , consists of an exhortation and a promise. The items of the exhortation, and the implication of each are as follows:
1. Acquaint thyself with God (Job 22:21 ), which implies Job’s ignorance of him.
2. Accept his law and treasure it up in thy heart (Job 22:22 ), which implies Job’s enmity against God.
3. Repent and reform (Job 22:23 ), which implies wickedness in Job.
4. Cease worshiping gold and let God be the object of thy worship (Job 22:24 ), implying that he was covetous.
The items of the promise are:
1. God, not gold, shall be thy treasure and delight and his worship thy joy (Job 22:25-26 ).
2. Thy prayers will be heard and thy vows accepted (Job 22:27 ).
3. Thy purposes will be accomplished and thy way illumined (Job 22:28 ).
4. Thou shall hope for uplifting when cast down and thy humility will secure divine interposition (Job 22:29 ).
5. Thou shall even deliver guilty men through thy righteousness (Job 22:30 ). [Cf. Gen 18:25-32 ; ten righteous men would have saved Sodom; but compare Eze 14:14 ; Eze 14:20 and Jer 15:1 ; see also Job’s reply in Job 31 .] The items of Job’s reply as it applies to his particular case (Job 23:1-24:12 ) are:
1. Even yet my complaint is accounted rebellion by men though my hand represses my groaning (Job 23:2 ).
2. “Oh that I could now get the case before God himself he would deliver me forever, but I cannot find him, though he finds me” (Job 3:10 a).
3. When he has fully tried me, as gold is tested by fire, I shall be vindicated, for my life has been righteous (Job 23:10-12 ). [This is nearly up to Rom 8:28 ,]
4. But his mind, in continuing my present trouble though I am innocent, is immutable by prayers and his purpose to accomplish in me what he desires is inflexible (Job 23:13-14 ).
5. This terrifies me, because I am in the dark and unheard (Job 23:15-17 ).
6. Why are there not judgment days in time, so that those that know him may meet him? (Job 24:1 ).
7. Especially when there are wicked people who do all the things with which I am falsely charged, whom he regards not
The items of broad generalization in this reply are as follows Here Job passes from his particular case to a broad generalization of providential dealings and finds the same inexplicable problems]:
1. There are men who remove land marks, i.e., land stealers (Job 24:2 ). (Cf. Deu 19:14 ; Deu 27:17 ; and Hos 5:10 ; also Henry George vs. Land Ownership in severally and limitations of severally ownership when it becomes a monopoly), so that it shuts out the people from having a home. (See Isa 5:8 .)
2. There are those who openly rob the widow and orphan and turn the poor away so that they have to herd as wild asses and live on the gleanings from nature (Job 24:3-8 ).
3. There are those who pluck the fatherless from the mother’s breast for slaves and exact the clothing of the poor for a pledge, so that though laboring in the harvest they are hungry, and though treading the wine press they are thirsty (Job 24:9-11 ).
4. In the city men groan, the wounded cry out in vain for help and God regardeth not the folly (Job 24:12 ).
5. These are rebels against light, yet it is true that certain classes are punished: (1) the murderer; (2) the thief; (3) the adulterer (Job 24:13-17 ).
6. The grave gets all of them, though God spares the mighty for a while and if it is not so, let some one prove me a liar and my speech worth nothing (Job 24:18-25 ).
In Bildad’s reply to Job (Job 25 ) he ignores Job’s facts; repeats a platitude, How should man, impure and feeble, born of a woman, a mere worm, be clean before the Almighty in whose sight the moon and stars fade?
Job’s reply to Bildad is found in Job 26:1-4 , thus:
1. Thou hast neither helped nor saved the weak.
2. Thou hast not counseled them that have no wisdom.
3. Thou hast not even done justice to what is known.
4. To whom have you spoken, and who inspired you?
Job excels Bildad in speaking of God’s power (Job 26:5-14 ), the items of which are:
1. The dead tremble beneath the waters and the inhabitants thereof before him.
2. Hell and destruction are naked to his sight. [Cf. “Lord of the Dead,” Mat 22:32 and other like passages.]
3. The northern sky is over space and the suspended earth hangeth on nothing.
4. The clouds hold water and are not rent by it; his own throne is hidden by the cloud spread upon it.
5. A boundary is fixed to the waters and a horizon to man’s vision, even unto the confines of darkness.
6. The mountains shake and the pillars tremble, yet he quells the raging storm.
7. These are but the outskirts and whispers of his ways and we understand his whisper better than we understand his thunder.
Two things are worthy of note here, viz:
1. Job was a martyr, vicarious, he suffered for others.
2. Job’s sufferings were a forecast of the suffering Messiah as Abraham was of the suffering Father. So far, we have found:
1. That good men often suffer strange calamities while evil men often prosper.
2. That the sufferings of the righteous come from intelligence, power, and malice, and so, too, the prosperity of the wicked comes from supernatural power as well.
3. That man cannot solve the problem without a revelation, and the suffering good man needs a daysman, and an advocate.
4. That before one can comprehend God, God must become a man, or be incarnated.
5. That there must be a future, since even and exact Justice is not meted out here.
6. That there is a final judgment, at which all will be rewarded for what they do.
7. That there must be a resurrection and there must be a kinsman redeemer.
Many things were not understood at that time, such as the following:
1. That Satan’s power was only permitted, he being under the absolute control of God.
2. That suffering was often disciplinary and, as such, was compensated.
3. That therefore the children of God should glory in them, as in the New Testament light of revelation Paul understood all this and gloried in his tribulation.
4. That the wicked were allowed rope for free development and that they were spared for repentance. Peter in the New Testament gives us this light.
5. That there is a future retribution; that there are a heaven and a hell.
6. That this world is the Devil’s sphere of operation as it relates to God’s people.
QUESTIONS
1. Of what does Eliphaz’s third speech consist?
2. What the subject of part one (Job 22:1-4 ) and its main points?
3. What the subject of part two (Job 22:5-20 ) & in general, what the status of case?
4. What the specifications of Eliphaz’s charge against Job?
5. Of what does Job 22:21-30 consist?
6. What the items of the exhortation, and what the implication of each?
7. What the items of the promise?
8. What the items of Job’s reply as it applies to his particular case (Job 23:1-17 )?
9. What the items of broad generalization in this reply?
10. What was Bildad’s reply to Job (Job 25 )?
11. What Job’s reply to Bildad?
12. In what does Job excel Bildad (Job 26:5-14 ) and what the items?
13. What two things are worthy of note here?
14. So far, what have we found?
15. What was not understood at that time?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Job 24:1 Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days?
Ver. 1. Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty ] Heb. Why are not times hidden from the Almighty? q.d. Who could think any otherwise, that had not been at the sanctuary, Psa 73:17 , and there heard, Woe to the wicked! it shall go ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be (sooner or later) given unto him? Isa 3:11 . The Jewish doctors conclude, but falsely, from this text, that Job denied the Divine providence. And the Vulgate Latin, to solve the matter and save Job from the imputation of epicurism, takes the boldness to leave out the interrogative why, and rendereth it thus, The times are not hidden from the Almighty; lest, by making it a question, Job should affirm that times and events are hidden from God, or at least should wish and desire that they were so. Vatablus thinketh that Job here putteth on the person of one that denieth God’s providence, or at least doubteth it; as if he should say, Ye, my friends, say that nothing is hidden from God, and I now demand of you how the times, and those things which are done in time, can be otherwise than hid from him, when as we see wicked men so to take their swing in sin, and yet, for aught we see, to escape unpunished? It should seem, by his winking at wicked practices, that he takes no care how things are carried in this present world; as certainly he would do were he diligens mundi oeconomus, aut rerum humanarum conscius (Brent.). This indeed might stagger a David or a Jeremiah in a passion, as Psa 73:2-17 Jer 12:1 , and make a Diagoras or an Averroes turn atheist; but Job was better instructed in this point, as appeareth by many passages in this Book. See Job 21:16 ; Job 21:22 . Neither can any such thing be concluded from this text, if we take in the latter part of the verse.
Do they that know him not see his days?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job Chapter 24
Chap. 24. – This closes the answer of Job to Eliphaz that we began on last Wednesday. Job makes it perfectly clear that all things now are an anomaly – that you cannot judge of God’s feeling about the prosperity of man here below, for the righteous are often far more tried; and it is no proof of anything wrong on their part, but, on the contrary, God putting them to the test, to manifest that they really are His; consequently, submissiveness of heart is what we are all called to under trial, and to perfect confidence in God. Still, we have an advantage saints of old had not and could not have till Christ came – not merely Christ’s work accomplished, but the light of Christ shining. They had not that. This was before the law. Nevertheless, we see clearly that there was light enough for those that looked to God, and that there was darkness unquestionably, just as there is now, for those that have not faith in God. Only, the great profitable lesson of the book is the difference between believers, and why it is. There was a mighty difference between Job and his three friends, and I have endeavoured to point out wherein that difference lay. Whatever might be the mistakes of Job, and whatever his irritation at being accounted a hypocrite by his friends (and if we have ever known anything like that we can know the bitterness of it), there is no blow so keen and so deeply felt as that which comes from those who profess to love us. And yet the devil is always working and trying to set God’s children by the ears.
Well, here we find it in a very extreme form. That is the grand difference between the history of Job and that of other men. They only knew it in a measure; but God brought it out in one great display in the case of Job, who was more tried than any other man ever was. I do not mean that Paul and Peter and others may not have had trials of their own kind, and, particularly their life in their hand. That was not the case with Job. There was no question of life; it was a question of endurance. His life was not to be touched; it would have entirely spoilt the history if Job had died; but God took care that whatever his sufferings might be, he was preserved; and preserved to pass through such a scene as probably was in no other case since the world began, yet turned to incomparable benefit. That was what God was showing.
Satan never does anything for good – always for evil But in this case Satan had entirely failed, and it was God that wrought, and wrought particularly by the unfaithfulness and the unspirituality of Job’s three friends. That is the great moral of the book. It was only then that he began to curse his day – never before. Whatever came from Satan he bore, and bore it with the fullest courage and with all confidence in God. But when his three friends began to insinuate wickedness hidden, and hypocrisy, that was too much for Job; he could not stand it. He broke out therefore into many a word highly unbecoming; but God made all allowance for that, because in the main Job adhered to God, and whatever came, he desired to accept it from God. He could not understand why, but he still cleaved to God. Now he puts the case himself.
“Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do not they that know him see his days?” i.e., there are these times of evil, and how is it that God, who is a moral governor, and who takes notice of all evil, yea, even the words of people (words reveal the secrets of the heart) – how is it that He allows it to pass` as He does, and that there is no day of retribution now? Well, we can perfectly answer that. It is all reserved for Christ. The Father will not judge any man; that is not what the Father will do. He is showing love because He is a Father, and showing love because He is God; because God is love just as much as He is light. And therefore it is reserved for Christ, and the reason is plain. Christ was the One whom, without the very slightest reason for it, without a cause, they hated. They hated both Him and the Father; and therefore it is reserved for the Lord Jesus to execute judgment. All judgment is committed to the Son, because He is the Son of man, and as the Son of man He has been hated; His Deity has been denied, and He was accounted as a companion of wicked people. He was accounted as a Samaritan, and to have even a demon. There was nothing too bad for man to say and feel.
And these were not the heathen; the heathen were never so bad as that. It is God’s people when in a bad state that are worse than anybody. That is a thing that many cannot understand and do not believe. There they are beating their drums and blowing their trumpets in Christendom as if everything were going on right. Oh, they are ripening for judgment indeed in England. It is not merely a Kamchatka or in the centre of Africa; all that is quite a mistake. The more light there is, if people are not faithful, the worse they are. And therefore our Lord was very clear in showing that the Jews were the people. It was no question of Sodom and Gomorrah. They talked about the horribleness of Sodom and Gomorrah. ‘Oh,’ said the Lord, ‘it is you that are worse than they. It will be more tolerable in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah and Tyre’ – and all those places that were regarded as peculiarly wicked – ‘it will be worse for Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum.’ Capernaum was the place where He lived. It was accounted His own city in Galilee. What He thought worse was the rejection of all His light and all His love. And therefore the nearer you are to the blessing, if the blessing is not yours the more guilty you are.
But then comes another very important thing, and that is, that unless our self is judged – unless there is continual self-judgment going on day by day, we get hard; we lose the unction of the truth, we lose the power of it in our souls, and thus we may be very self-complacent, because we know that we believe. That is just where the friends of Job were. They were quite comfortable; there was nothing amiss with them; they were all right, but Job! he must be very bad. That was their entire misjudgment. Now Job faces this question – how is it, if the times are so bad, that the day of retribution does not come? We do not see it. It is coming; it awaits the only One that can perfectly deal with evil.
We are all apt to be very partial. Sometimes there are certain evils very bad in our eyes – man’s eyes particularly. Some people are very hard upon drinking. Well, the same people are not at all hard upon covetousness. Nevertheless I suppose there is no one with any judgment but what avows that the spirit of covetousness is far more blinding and injurious to the soul than even the debasement of a man getting tipsy. No doubt a tipsy man is an object of contempt to those that are temperate, and they pass very severe judgment upon him; and there is where the devil attacks them all. ‘Oh, no; I never drink; I never touch a drop; I am a good man; and they are very bad, they are very wicked!’ Well, I do not at all doubt that they are bad; but I do say other people are worse who have a good opinion of themselves. There is nothing that God has more an abhorrence of than a man who thinks well of himself; for however lofty his thoughts he is nothing but a poor, lost sinner, and if he has not one particular evil he has others perhaps as bad or even worse. I do not say that to excuse anything.
There are many other ways in which people show that they have nothing in common with the Lord Jesus, and that they have no knowledge of God whatever. But it is the Lord that will be the infallible Judge. It is the Lord that will never swerve to the one side or the other. Everything that is contrary to God will be met solemnly by His judgment another day; and it is because people did not see God in Him, but only a man, that therefore He as a man will be the Judge of all mankind. All judgment is committed to the Son because He is the Son of man. Well now, Job describes these anomalies that are going on now. He says, “Some remove the landmarks.” That is not at all an uncommon thing. We have the evidence of it all round about us in London now. There are people that have encroached upon – taken the common land of this very Blackheath. There you see in various parts of it where people somehow or other have encroached; they have laid hold upon what does not belong to them. But it has gone on so long that the law cannot touch them. There they are in possession; and we know that is a great thing in the eyes of lawyers although it is quite contrary to law in itself, but still they cannot touch them. And there are all these anomalies constantly going on – even in the face of all the censure of the law; here we have it. If we were in Cornwall or in the south of Ireland nobody would be astonished; there are plenty of anomalies there; but here you have it in London before your eyes.
And so it is too in many other forms besides land grabbing. But this is what is referred to – a very old trick of bad men, and particularly of men of property, particularly of men of rank and the like, because having land it gives them the opportunity of stealing a little more. And so it is with kings. They see there is a nice province just outside France that would make such a good addition to the Empire, and by and bye it is stolen. Well then again, Germany sees that there is a certain part that gives an outlet to the sea that they have not, and they steal that and find a pretext of war in order to take what belongs to Denmark or whatever country it may be. In that case it was Denmark. That is in our own day – both of these things. And so it has ever been; and that is in the face not merely of the law, but the gospel; and these things are done by people that go to church or to chapel and the like, and there they are professing Christians. And all that by the very persons who by their position are the guardians of the execution of the law; yet they are the people guilty of all this wickedness.
And the same thing goes on in the lower strata of society. There they are prompted very often by want; but then what is it very often that is the cause of want? Why, for the most part it is dishonesty; it is recklessness as to performance of their duty. They lose their post. They strive to get rich; they take money that does not belong to them, and they come under public judgment. That is going on constantly in the lower just as it is in the higher strata, and the fact of it is, all is wrong, and will be wrong here below till the Lord Jesus is the One that executes judgment and that reigns righteously. Nothing will be passed over; there will be no favouritism, but all will be according to God, and never before. For any measure of peace or quietness or allowance of what people have – to be in their possession peacefully – we have reason to thank God very much indeed. But I am speaking now of looking into things as they really are, and it does not matter what country you take.
We in England think ourselves a very righteous nation, and there are many that think we are, as compared with others; but I have just been referring to things that prove how very hollow all this pretension to righteousness is. And therefore there is the greatest possible comfort in looking up to God. There there is absolute righteousness, and not only that, but active goodness. There there is God caring for His own. He chastises them because He loves them – where there is something that they do not see; for very often it is that they do not. Sometimes we are buffeted for our faults. That is a thing that ought not to be. We ought to suffer for righteousness rather than for unrighteousness, because “for sins Christ once suffered, Just for unjust,” Who is made infinitely dear to us. But there we come on Christian ground.
Now Job simply takes up the things that are around him. “They violently take away flocks and feed thereof. They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow’s ox for a pledge. They turn the needy out of the way” – these were what you may call the “respectables” of society, the people who had flocks and herds, but they wanted more. “The poor of the earth hide themselves together.” Well, now we see another class; we see the poor and distressed here below. “Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work” – they are the people that have nothing, now the “masses,” that have no skilled work, but that live merely jobbing about, and in all the precariousness and the suffering that this jobbery produces. “As wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work; rising betimes for a prey” – before the light, and a prey, because it is not something settled – it is what they can catch. “The wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children.”
Think of that – the barren sands of the wilderness, that is the only thing, and why? Because they have got no land of their own. “They reap every one his own corn in the field” – that is the corn of the rich man – “and they gather the vintage of the wicked.” Now they are called not “rich” but “wicked.” “They cause the naked to lodge without clothing” – that is what these wicked rich do. They have not pity for them; they make use of them for their work. “They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the showers of the mountains” – describing still the indigent class that had scarcely any regular work to do, – “and embrace the rock for want of shelter. They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor. They cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry.” There might be a sheaf or two forgotten in the case of harvest, but they have found it out, and they are at them to get back their sheaf. “Which make oil within their walls.” They are employed for their abundance – they make the oil, but they never have a drop of it for themselves – “and tread their wine-presses and suffer thirst.” There is no wine for them. “Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out; yet God layeth not folly to them.” God does not take any notice of it, and the reason is that He is waiting for that day.
Now what a wonderful love it is to the very persons to whom the gospel is preached. It was to the “poor” the gospel was preached; they were peculiarly the object of the Lord Jesus. There never was such a thing before, since the world began. Nobody ever made them his grand object, and that for eternity. But Job could not know anything of that. “They are of those that rebel against the light; they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof.” Then he describes a still worse class. That is a man – whether higher or lower it does not matter – a man of violence, the murderer. The man who has got his quarrel, and the man that nothing will satiate but the life of his victim. “The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief” – who will be ashamed to show that he was robbing the poor. “The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me” – the corrupt man – violence and corruption, the two great characteristics of human evil – “and disguiseth his face. In the dark they dig through the houses, which they had marked for themselves in the day-time; they know not the light. For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death; if one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death.” They cannot bear to be known, what they are and what they seek. There he pursues this terrible picture down to the end of the chapter, showing that there is an eternal misery and a consciousness of guilt – for that was a very wonderful working of God.
When man was first created, he did not know anything about good and evil. He did not know the difference between them, because no such thing here existed. He was made perfectly without any evil. There was no evil in man when God sent him forth from His hand. But directly he fell into sin he acquired the power of judging what was wrong, and what was right in itself. That is conscience. There was no need of conscience judging of what was right and wrong when all was good; but directly man fell, he began to judge good and evil That is what God does perfectly – man does it in an unhappy, miserable way. It is because he knows of what is within that he detects it without, and pronounces judgment, but man is none the better. Now when man is unconverted, he goes on in that kind of misery, and his use of good and evil is this – there are other men he considers as bad as, or worse than, himself, and he excuses himself on that ground, and so he goes on. But when a man is converted conscience turns its eye upon himself. That is the reason why repentance is indelibly and from the very beginning bound up with the believer in Christ. Faith and repentance go together, and the fact of our receiving Christ makes us judge self, and not merely to spot other people’s evil or excuse ourselves.
You see it in the poor tax-gatherer. When the Pharisee was saying, ‘God, I thank Thee I am not like other men; I am a better-man; I do not drink; I do not swear; I do not go to gamble or anything of that kind; no, I am a good man, much better than other people’ – there was the poor tax-gatherer, to whose soul God had spoken, and who, instead of looking to find other people as bad or worse, can only say, “God be merciful to me the sinner!” It is not merely “to me a sinner.” For many, many years I have been struck with the great beauty of that expression “God be merciful to me the sinner, if ever there was one. I know my sins and they are so overwhelming I do not think about others. God be merciful to me the sinner; me only.” That man went down justified rather than the other. It is not what is called “justification by faith”; but it was the right thing that always takes place in a converted soul – self-condemnation before God And it is the light of Christ, somehow entering, that produces that. And therefore now that the work of Christ is done He is exalted to give repentance and remission of sins to every one that looks to Him.
So that repentance is a gracious work; the very opposite of men having a bad conscience. It was man, at any rate, having his conscience set right to condemn himself. He did not know it yet. He did not know his sins gone – that is the consequence of redemption. That could not be till the work of Christ came in. There might be a looking onward to Christ and His work. Some had a confident hope that the Lord would take their sins away; they did not know how. But now the gospel is the proclamation on the part of God of that which clearly explains and fully accounts for it. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin.” We are glad to believe that – “from all sin.” If all our sins are not blotted out none of them are. If one sin is gone they are all gone. It is only through Christ, and never does Christ do a thing in a half or niggardly way, as man does. No; it is complete. Here then Job is simply looking at the terrible state of these bad consciences, and then goes on to his death, and there the worms have their feast; that is all he says about it. And if the wicked are exalted, it is only to go down the more.
Well now we come to Bildad (Job 25 ). And Bildad only barely gives the appearance of a speech. It is a very short one, and it has no kind of application really to Job. They are evidently obliged to give in, and Bildad, the second of them, he it is that now descants upon the glory of God. And it is all perfectly true, and very finely stated too. There is a great deal of what is very beautiful in what Bildad said, only it had no bearing on the matter at all. “Dominion and fear are with him; he maketh peace in his high places.” Yes, but what troubled Job was that he had anything but peace in his low place. There he was in this terrible humiliation and suffering, and he could not tell why it was. “Is there any number of his armies?” That is all very true; was that any comfort to Job, or any answer? “And upon whom doth not his light arise?” Well, there might be an implication that Job was all wrong because he did not enjoy the light, and it was not that Bildad did. The fact is that he was quiet; he was entirely without any trial; and he could therefore talk reasonably, and so far quietly; but he had no understanding of Job.
“How then can man be justified with God?” That is exactly what Job had said in the ninth chapter, so that he was only repeating what Job had said a great deal better than he. Job enters into it in a very full manner, and so strongly that he even puts forth the need of a daysman, i.e., a mediator, between God and man. He had far more spiritual light than any of them. “How can he be clean that is born of a woman?” That again is what Job had already taught. “Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight; how much less man, that is a worm, and the son of man, which is a worm?” That was all true, but had no bearing.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
Why . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis. App-6.
times. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Adjunct) for the events which take place in them.
THE ALMIGHTY. Hebrew Shaddai. App-4.
see = perceive, or understand.
days. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Adjunct), App-6, for His doings in them: e.g. visitation, or judgment, &c. Compare Job 18:20. Psa 37:13; Psa 137:7. Eze 21:29. Oba 1:12. Luk 19:42. 1Co 4:3.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 24
Now, why, seeing the times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days? Some [now you’ve accused me of these things, but there are some] that remove the landmarks; and violently take away another man’s flocks. And they drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow’s ox for a pledge. They turn the needy out of the way: the poor of the earth hide themselves together. Behold, as the wild asses in the desert, they go forth to their work; rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness yields food for them and for their children. They reap every one his corn in the field: and they gather the vintage of the wicked. They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, they have no covering for the cold. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for the want of a shelter. They pluck the fatherless from the breast, they take a pledge of the poor. They cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry; Which make oil within their walls, and tread their winepresses, and they suffer thirst. [They allow others to go thirsty.] Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded cries out: yet God lays not folly to them. [They are doing these horrible things but] they are those that rebel against the light; and they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof. The murderer rising with the light kills the poor and the needy, and in the night is as a thief. The eye also of the adulterer waits for twilight, saying, No one will see me: and he disguises his face. And in the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked in the daytime: they know not the light. For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death: if one knows them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death ( Job 24:1-17 ).
They do all their dirty work at night. They won’t go out in the daytime. It’s fearful for them to go out in the light. As Jesus said, “Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil” ( Joh 3:19 ).
He is swift as the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth: he beholds not the way of the vineyards. Drought and heat consume the snow waters: so doth the grave those which have sinned. The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him ( Job 24:18-20 );
As your body’s decaying there in the ground.
he shall be no more remembered; the wickedness shall be broken as a tree. He evil entreateth the barren that bears not: and does not good to the widow ( Job 24:20-21 ).
And so forth. So Bildad has had it. I mean, he really doesn’t have much more to say to Job. In fact, all of the guys are sort of just phasing out at this point. They really can’t argue much against Job’s logic. He really has pretty much proved his case. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Job 24:1. Why, seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his days?
Why do they live so long? Why do they appear to have such prosperity?
Job 24:2-4. Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof. They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widows ox for a pledge. They turn the needy out of the way: the poor of the earth hide themselves together.
They are hard-hearted enough to rob even poor widows and orphan children.
Job 24:5. Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work;
Like wild asses, their work consists in going forth to do mischief.
Job 24:5. Rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children.
For there are some so hard that they would skin a flint, and out of the wilderness would manage to get food. Yet such hard oppressors of others sometimes seem to prosper for awhile.
Job 24:6-12. They reap everyone his corn in the field: and they gather the vintage of the wicked. They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter. They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor. They cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry; Which make oil within their walls, and tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst. Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out: yet God layeth not folly to them.
He lets them alone, leaves them to do as they please. So it seems; but this is not the day of judgment, and this is not the place of final retribution. Now and then, God flashes forth his anger against some gross sinner or some national crime; but as for the most of mens sins, he beareth with them till that tremendous day shall come, which draweth on apace, when he shall hang the heavens in sackcloth, and hold the last assize, and every man shall receive according to his works.
Job 24:13-17. They are of those that rebel against the light; they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof. The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief. The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me: and disguiseth his face. In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime: they know not the light. For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death: if one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death.
These are the men who plunder secretly, who rob, yet cannot bear to be known as thieves.
Job 24:18. He is swift as the waters; their portion is cursed in the earth:
There was no curse upon Job, and no curse can come near the true child of God; his scanty portion is still blest. But the large portion of the ungodly is cursed even while he is in the earth.
Job 24:18-20. He beholdeth not the way of the vineyards. Drought and heat consume the snow waters: so doth the grave those which have sinned. The womb shall forget him; the worm shall feed sweetly on him;
What a sarcastic utterance! This man, who lorded it over others, how glad the worm shall be to get at him! This fat worldling shall be a rich feast for the worms.
Job 24:20. He shall be no more remembered; and wickedness shall be broken as a tree.
It shall snap off, and be brought to an ignominious end.
Job 24:21-24. He evil entreateth the barren that beareth not: and doeth not good to the widow. He draweth also the mighty with his power: he riseth up, and no man is sure of life. Though it be given him to be in safety, whereon he resteth; yet his eyes are upon their ways. They are exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low; they are taken out of the way as all other, and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn.
In the East, they generally reap their harvest by just taking off the tops of the ears of corn, and leaving the straw. Thus will the wicked be cut off.
Job 24:25. And if it be not so now, who will make me a liar, and make my speech nothing worth?
Job challenges all men to contradict what he affirms, that the righteous may be greater sufferers, and the wicked may for awhile prosper, but that God will, in the end, overthrow the ungodly, and establish the righteous.
This exposition consisted of readings from Job 23, 24.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Job 24:1
Job 24:1
THE CONCLUSION OF JOB’S EIGHTH ADDRESS
“Why are times not laid up by the Almighty?
And why do not they that know him see his days?”
In this verse, Job raises the question of why God does not establish set days (or times) for judging men’s conduct, and assigning rewards and punishment to men as they may be deserved. Job here poses this question as an argument against Eliphaz’ notion that the wicked are invariably punished in this present life, and that the righteous are invariably rewarded, propositions which Job has rejected and resisted throughout the controversy as being absolutely contrary to the known facts of life.
As we have pointed out earlier, there are definite reasons WHY there must be variations in the life patterns both of the wicked and of the righteous, making it an impossibility to lay down set laws that it must always be either this way or that way for either class of men. These reasons are: (1) God has given all men the freedom of their will. (2) By reason of the Fall, Satan enjoys many powers as `the god of this world.” (3) God has cursed the ground (the earth) for Adam’s sake, and from this all kinds of natural disasters fall continually upon mankind. (4) “Time and chance happeneth unto them all (all men)” (Ecc 9:11).
All of these things, to which there must also be added the uncertainty of chance (luck), enter into the uncertainty and unpredictability of the life of any man, either wicked or righteous. The result of this is spelled out in the scripture just cited. “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill” (Ecc 9:11).
A SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING THIS CHAPTER
“In Job 24, we run into all kinds of problems. First, there are textual difficulties that render many lines almost unintelligible. The translators have patched them up to their satisfaction; but there is no unanimous agreement in the many solutions offered. A number of verses are rejected and removed by different scholars; but there’s no agreement on any of this. The speech as a whole is incoherent; some of it seems at variance with what Job has maintained all along. Some scholars, such as Pope in the Anchor Bible have shuffled the verses around into a different order.”
This problem is related by some to the brevity of the speech by Bildad in this third cycle, some supposing that what is here accredited to Job may, in fact have been spoken by Bildad. These problems and uncertainties which continue to appear throughout the last half of the text of Job are utterly beyond the scope of any ability of this writer to solve them.
We shall proceed, therefore, as Andersen stated it and, “Be content with accepting the text as it stands in our version, and to do the best we can to interpret it.
E.M. Zerr:
Job 24:1. Times are not hidden means that God knows all about man and his conduct. That being so, why are wicked men suffered to be prosperous?
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Passing from the personal aspect of his problem, Job considered it in its wider application. He asked the reason of God’s noninterference, and then proceeded to describe the evidences of it. Men still existed whose whole activity was oppression. In other words, Job declared that the things which Eliphaz attributed to him are present in the world, and described them far more graphically than Eliphaz had, ending with the declaration:
Yet God imputeth it not for folly.
Continuing, he declared that the murderer, the adulterer, ‘ and the robber, all continued their evil courses with impunity. I t was h e t hat they pass and die, and yet, for the time being, they were in security. He ended all by challenging anyone to deny the truth of what he had said. Thus Job admitted, in some sense, the accuracy of Eliphaz’ declaration concerning his view of God as absent from the affairs of men, but in his method he treated with silent scorn the imputation cast on him of acting on that view in the way of evil described by his friends. His final challenge was for anyone to prove him wrong in his contention that God does not interfere with the ways of wickedness.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
not Here, but Hereafter
Job 24:1-25
Job laments that the times of punishment are not so explained by God, that those who know Him may see and understand His reasons. He then turns to describe the life of the ungodly, who do dark deeds with apparent impunity. A very sad catalogue of crimes follows. The oppression of the needy, the driving away of the ass of the fatherless, the taking of the widows ox for a pledge, the frequenting of the wilderness, the plunder of caravans regardless of the claims of pity, the stealing of oil and wine from those who had labored to produce them, the murdering of the poor laboring man at the dawn, the commission of crimes at night-such are the iniquities which are described. And these crimes are still committed in so-called Christian lands. Wonderful that God should bear with us, but His long-suffering would fain lead men to repent. It is only after long forbearing and trial that He cuts down.
In his closing words, Job 24:18-21, Job quotes the opinion of his friends as to the condition of the ungodly, that they pass away swiftly as the waters, and are snapped as a branch of a tree. And, in opposition, he states his own view, Job 24:23-25, that they die in exalted positions, not by a painful and lingering death, but as corn in the maturity of the ear. This also is true. Wicked men do not always meet their deserts in this world. In the next world penalty is inevitable.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
seeing: Psa 31:15, Ecc 3:17, Ecc 8:6, Ecc 8:7, Ecc 9:11, Ecc 9:12, Isa 60:22, Dan 2:21, Luk 21:22-24, Act 1:7, Act 17:26, 1Th 5:1, 1Ti 4:1, 1Ti 6:15, 2Pe 2:3, 2Pe 3:7, 2Pe 3:8
they that know: Psa 9:10, Psa 36:10, Joh 17:3
not see: Gen 7:4, Gen 18:17, Gen 18:20, Gen 18:21, Psa 73:16-19, Jer 12:1-3, Mat 24:38, Rom 2:5
Reciprocal: Exo 9:5 – a set time Job 34:36 – his answers
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 24:1. Why, &c. Job, having by his complaints, in the foregoing chapter, given vent to his passion, and thereby gained some ease, breaks them off abruptly, and now applies himself to a further discussion of the doctrinal controversy between him and his friends, concerning the prosperity of wicked people. That many live at ease, who yet are ungodly and profane, and despise all the exercises of devotion, he had showed, chap. 21. Now he goes further, and shows that many who are mischievous to mankind, and live in open defiance of all the laws of justice and common honesty, yet thrive and succeed in their unrighteous practices; and we do not see them reckoned with in this world. He first lays down his general proposition, That the punishment of wicked people is not so visible and apparent as his friends supposed, and then proves it by an induction of particulars. Why How comes it to pass; seeing times are not hidden from the Almighty Seeing the fittest seasons for every action, and particularly for the punishment of wicked men, are not unknown to God: do they that know him That love and obey him; not see his days? The times and seasons which he takes for the punishment of ungodly men; which times are frequently called the days of the Lord, as Isa 2:12; Isa 13:6; Jer 46:10; Act 2:20. Surely, if they were constant and fixed in this life, they would not be unknown to good men, to whom God is wont to reveal his secrets. His words may be paraphrased a little more at large, thus: To answer a little what you have so often asserted: If punishments from God upon the wicked, in this world, are so certain as you say, why do not they who are truly pious see them openly inflicted? Surely it is most strange, that there are not some certain fixed times when God arises publicly, and in the face of the whole world inflicts these deserved punishments upon the wicked. Whereas, experience shows, that these visible judgments are very rarely inflicted, and many true worshippers of God pass through the world without ever seeing any thing of this kind. Heath renders the verse, Why are not stated seasons set apart by the Almighty? And why do not those who know him see his days? namely, of vengeance on the wicked.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 24:3. They drive away the ass of the fatherless. In Jobs time there was no regular government or empire, to bring neighbouring tyrants to justice; proof sufficient that this book is of the highest antiquity.
REFLECTIONS.
The second part of Jobs reply turns, like chap. 12., on the wickedness of the world, and wickedness not bidden from the eyes of God. The bitter fountain in every age sends out its bitter streams. Our portraits come from holy men. Jeremiah represents Jerusalem as almost devoid of a good man. The language of David in the fourteenth Psalm, is confirmed by Paul: Rom 1:20. The complaints of Bothius, in his consolations of philosophy, find a parallel in the metropolises of Europe. The dissipated prodigal, the avaricious worldling, who wrings out the blood of the widow and the orphan, the learned seducer, the drunkard and the profligate everywhere abound. Locks, bars, and bolts cannot protect the earnings of industry.Job, in his portrait of such characters in his day, gives the challengeIf it be not so now, who will make me a liar? The vices of man require excision, and excision at a stroke, lest the culprit should go into the fire of gehenna, where the worm dieth not, and where the fire is not quenched. The stony heart must be removed, and all things made new.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 24. This chapter has since Merx in 1871 been subjected to much criticism, the general trend of which has been to deny the whole or a considerable part of the chapter to Job. Peake, however, considers that the chapter as a whole reflects Jobs point of view, though alien elements are to be recognised in it. Davidson sums up the chapter under the heading: The Divine rectitude which Job misses in his own instance he equally misses in the broad field of the world.
Job 24:1 asks why days of assize are wanting in the universe? With Job 24:2 begins a series of examples of injustice. In Job 24:5-8 we have the description of a wretched tribe of pariahs, nameless outcasts, probably aborigines. In Job 24:6 provender is literally fooder as for animals. But as the Heb. is literally his fodder, perhaps it would be better to emend They reap by night in the field (Merx).
Job 24:9 should probably be put after Job 24:4. Then Job 24:10 f. may continue the description of the outcasts who by stealth raid the sheaves and the oil and wine of the rich, or it may be that we have a fresh description of day labourers, who starve in the midst of the harvest they gather and press.
Job 24:12 speaks of equal injustice in the cities. But God took no heed of it.
Job 24:13 f. describes the night-birds, who hate the light. In Job 24:14 for with the light read when there is no light.
Job 24:16 See Exo 12:22*.
Job 24:17 means that the morning is to them a time of peril, on the other hand they know and care little for the terrors of the deep darkness.
Job 24:18-24 describes what happens to these wrong-doers, but Job 24:18-21 takes the popular view. The Revisers recognise this by inserting Ye say in the margin: according to which Job is here to be regarded as anticipating the views of the friends. Or else we must regard the passage as misplaced from one of their speeches, or as a later gloss of an orthodox scribe. The text of Job 24:18 is obscure. As it stands, it seems to mean that the wicked is swept away like a twig upon the waters (Hos 10:7). He no longer visits his vineyards, which a curse has made barren. In Job 24:19 f. again the text is not good.
Job 24:22 resumes Jobs speech: translate as mg. Yet God by His power maketh the mighty to continue: they rise up, when they believed not they should live. The meaning is, they recover even from an apparently fatal illness.
Job 24:23 refers to Gods watching their ways to keep them from harm.
Job 24:24 is most naturally understood in the sense that the prosperity of the wicked is brief, and is therefore contrary to Jobs point of view and to be regarded as a gloss.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
DOES GOD FAIL TO GOVERN PROPERLY?
(vv.1-12)
“Why are not times treasured up with the Almighty? Why do not they who know Him see His days?” (v.1 – JND trans.) Job wonders why God (who is Almighty) does not take account of all that takes place in time, and why those who know Him do not witness on His part any serious dealing with gross evil when it is present. For, he says, “Some remove landmarks,” thereby stealing land from others; they violently steal flocks of sheep and feed on them; “they drive away the donkey of the fatherless; they take the widow’s ox a pledge. They push the needy off the road,” forcing the poor of the land to hide (vv.2-4). These were evils publicly known to take place. Job’s friends did not have any such clear charge to lay against him, but only imagined he must have done wrong. But here were cases of manifest wickedness, and God had not dealt with them as He was dealing with Job.
He goes on to speak of the way in which the poor were oppressed by evil men, “like wild donkeys in the desert, they go out to their work,” searching for food in the wilderness, gleaning in vineyards, often with little clothing and exposed to the cold night air or the showers of rain, huddling together to seek some semblance of shelter.
“Some snatch the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge from the poor. They cause the poor to go naked, without clothing; and they take away the sheaves from the hungry” (vv.9-10). Sheaves might have furnished a little food by beating out the grain, but even this was stolen from the poor.
Cruel men would employ them to press out oil and to tread winepresses, yet give them not even enough in wages to quench their thirst. Some were groaning in the pangs of death and the souls of the wounded were crying out. “Yet,” Job says, “God does not charge them (the oppressors) with wrong” (v.12). But Eliphaz was charging Job with wrong.
BOLD REBELLION AGAINST GOD
(vv.13-17)
Surely Job’s friends knew he could not be classed with those who “rebel against the light” (v.13). This is not only sin moved by greed, but that moved by bold defiance of God. There was, and is, light that can be of great blessing to those who value it, but many “choose darkness rather than light,” not merely giving in to their weaknesses, but deliberately choosing the ways of wilful evil.
“The murderer rises with the light” (v.14), though he does not know the light. Without compunction he kills the poor and needy. If he commits his evil action at night, he is like a thief, hiding until the moment he chooses to murder his victim.
The adulterer waits until it is dark enough that no one will recognise him, and in the dark breaks into a house which he has marked in the daytime, to commit his cruel crime of rape. Has society changed since Job’s time? Not at all! There are still such crimes committed every day. People keep on demanding more laws to combat such things, but laws do not change men’s rebellious hearts. They need to be saved by the grace of God.
WHAT SHOULD BE DONE – NOW?
(vv.18-21)
How many since Job have felt that something decisive should be done to curb the many glaring evils that plague society. Should not their recompense be swift? “Their portion should be cursed in the earth” (v.18), Job thinks; so that others would not turn into the way of their vineyards, that is, to follow the wicked because they prosper.
“As drought and heat consume the snow waters, so Sheol consumes those who have sinned” (v.19). This is true, but just as true of the righteous as of the wicked, speaking of their eventual end on earth. “The womb should forget him, the worm should feed sweetly on him; he should be remembered no more, and wickedness should be broken like a tree” (v.20). Though Job is speaking of what “should be,” there is no doubt that these things will be the eventual end of the ungodly, so it would have been more wise for him to calmly wait for God’s action to take place in its time, rather than to complain that His judgment was too slow. But Job ends this section with a strong reason for which judgment on the wicked should be swift, “For he preys on the barren who do not bear, and does no good for the widow” (v.21). This was certainly not a description of Job himself.
IS GOD THE PROTECTOR OF EVIL MEN?
(vv.22-25)
Not only did Job feel that God was lax in His judgment of evil, but that God actually protected people in their course of wickedness. He thought that God used His power to draw the mighty evildoers away from the crowd, so that no man was sure of life (v.22). “He gives them (the wicked) security, and they rely on it; yet His eyes are on their ways” (v.23). Job knew this was true, that God perceived all they were doing, yet continued to protect them from harm.
“They are exalted for a little while, then they are gone. They are brought low; they are taken out of the way like all others; they dry out like the heads of grain” (v.24). At least Job recognised that the exaltation of the wicked was only for a little while, then they were brought low and taken away, “like all others,” that is, they only shared the same end as others who were not wicked. If we consider this life only, then certainly everything is out of balance and frustrating. But all God’s accounts are not settled on this side of the grave.
However, Job’s friends were not considering eternity either, and as regards Job’s arguments concerning the prosperity of the wicked, he challenges his friends to prove him a liar (v.25). Certainly they could not do that, and Bildad’s reply does not even attempt this.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
24:1 Why, seeing times {a} are not hidden from the Almighty, do they that know him not see his {b} days?
(a) Thus Job speaks in his passions, and after the judgment of the flesh: that is, that he does not see the things that are done at times, nor yet has a peculiar care over all, because he does not punish the wicked or avenge the godly.
(b) When he punishes the wicked and rewards the good.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
XX.
WHERE IS ELOAH?
Job 23:1-17; Job 24:1-25
Job SPEAKS
THE obscure couplet with which Job begins appears to involve some reference to his whole condition alike of body and mind.
“Again today, my plaint, my rebellion!
The hand upon me is heavier than my groanings.”
I must speak of my trouble and you will count it rebellion. Yet, if I moan and sigh, my pain and weariness are more than excuse. The crisis of faith is with him, a protracted misery, and hope hangs trembling in the balance. The false accusations of Eliphaz are in his mind; but they provoke only a feeling of weary discontent. What men say does not trouble him much. He is troubled because of that which God refuses to do or say. Many indeed are the afflictions of the righteous. But every case like his own obscures the providence of God. Job does not entirely deny the contention of his friends that unless suffering comes as a punishment of sin there is no reason for it. Hence, even though he maintains with strong conviction that the good are often poor and afflicted while the wicked prosper, yet he does not thereby clear up the matter. He must admit to himself that he is condemned by the events of life. And against the testimony of outward circumstance he makes appeal in the audience chamber of the King.
Has the Most High forgotten to be righteous for a time? When the generous and true are brought into sore straits, is the great Friend of truth neglecting His task as Governor of the world? That would indeed plunge life into profound darkness. And it seems to be even so. Job seeks deliverance from this mystery which has emerged in his own experience. He would lay his cause before Him who alone can explain.
“Oh that I knew where I might find Him,
That I might come even to His seat!
I would order my cause before Him,
And fill my mouth with arguments.
I would know the words which He would answer me
And understand what He would say unto me.”
Present to Jobs mind here is the thought that he is under condemnation, and along with this the conviction that his trial is not over. It is natural that his mind should hover between these ideas, holding strongly to the hope that judgment, if already passed, will be revised whet the facts are fully known. Now this course of thought is altogether in the darkness. But what are the principles unknown to Job, through ignorance of which he has to languish in doubt? Partly, as we long ago saw the explanation lies in the use of trial and affliction as the means of deepening spiritual life. They give gravity and therewith the possibility of power to our existence. Even yet Job had not realised that one always kept in the primrose path, untouched by the keen air of “misfortune” although he had, to begin, a pious disposition and a blameless record, would be worth little: the end to God or to mankind. And the necessity for the discipline of affliction and disappointment, even as it explains the smaller troubles, explains also the greatest. Let ill be heaped on ill, disaster on disaster, disease on bereavement, misery on sorrow, while stage by stage the life goes down into deeper circles of gloom and pain, it may acquire, it will acquire, if faith and faithfulness towards God remain, massiveness, strength, and dignity for the highest spiritual service. But there is another principle, not yet considered, which enters into the problem and still more lightens up the valley of experience which to Job appeared so dark. The poem touches the fringe of this principle again and again, but never states it. The author says that men were born to trouble. He made Job suffer more because he had his integrity to maintain than if he had been guilty of transgressions by acknowledging which he might have pacified his friends: The burden lay heavily upon Job because he was a conscientious man, a true man, and could not accept any make believe in religion. But just where another step would have carried him into the light of blessed acquiescence in the will of God the power failed, he could not advance. Perhaps the genuineness and simplicity of his character would have been impaired if he had thought of it. and we like him better because he did not. The truth, however, is that Job was suffering for others, that he was, by the grace of God, a martyr, and so far forth in the spirit and position of that suffering Servant of Jehovah of whom we read in the prophecies of Isaiah.
The righteous sufferers, the martyrs, what are they? Always the vanguard of humanity. Where they go and the prints of their bleeding feet are left, there is the way of improvement, of civilisation, of religion. The most successful man, preacher or journalist or statesman, is popularly supposed to be leading the world in the right path. Where the crowd goes shouting after him, is that not the way to advance? Do not believe it. Look for a teacher, a journalist, a statesman who is not so successful as he might be, because he will, at all hazards, be true. The Christian world does not yet know the best in life, thought, and morality for the best. He who sacrifices position and esteem to righteousness, he who will not bow down to the great idol at the sound of sackbut and psaltery, observe where that man is going, try to understand what he has in his mind. Those who under defeat or neglect remain steadfast in faith have the secrets we need to know. To the ranks even of the afflicted and broken the author of Job turned for an example of witness bearing to high ideas and the faith in God which brings salvation. But he wrought in the shadow, and his hero is unconscious of his high calling. Had Job seen the principles of Divine providence which made him a helper of human faith, we should not now hear him cry for an opportunity of pleading his cause before God.
“Would He contend with me in His mighty power?
Nay, but He would give heed to me.
Then an upright man would reason with Him;
So should I get free forever from my Judge.”
It is in a sense startling to hear this confident expectation of acquittal at the bar of God. The common notion is that the only part possible to man in his natural state is to fear the judgment to come and dread the hour that shall bring him to the Divine tribunal. From the ordinary point of view the language of Job here is dangerous, if not profane. He longs to meet the Judge; he believes that he could so state his case that the Judge would listen and be convinced. The Almighty would not contend with him any longer as his powerful antagonist, but would pronounce him innocent and set him at liberty forever. Can mortal man vindicate himself before the bar of the Most High? Is not every one condemned by the law of nature and of conscience, much more by Him who knoweth all things? And yet this man who believes he would be acquitted by the great King has already been declared “perfect and upright, one that feareth God and escheweth evil.” Take the declaration of the Almighty Himself in the opening scenes of the book, and Job is found what he claims to be. Under the influence of that Divine grace which the sincere and upright may enjoy he has been a faithful servant and has earned the approbation of his Judge. It is by faith he is made righteous. Religion and love of the Divine law have been his guides; he has followed them; and what one has done may not others do? Our book is concerned not so much with the corruption of human nature, as with the vindication of the grace of God given to human nature. Corrupt and vile as humanity often is, imperfect and spiritually ignorant as it always is, the writer of this book is not engaged with that view. He directs attention to the virtuous and honourable elements and shows Gods new creation in which He may take delight.
We shall indeed find that after the Almighty has spoken out of the storm, Job says, “I repudiate my words and repent in dust and ashes.” So he appears to come at last to the confession which, from one point of view, he ought to have made at the first. But those words of penitence imply no acknowledgment of iniquity after all. They are confession of ignorant judgment. Job admits with sorrow that he has ventured too far in his attempt to understand the ways of the Almighty, that he has spoken without knowledge of the universal providence he had vainly sought to fathom.
The authors intention plainly is to justify Job in his desire for the opportunity of pleading his cause, that is, to justify the claim of the human reason to comprehend. It is not an offence to him that much of the Divine working is profoundly difficult to interpret. He acknowledges in humility that God is greater than man, that there are secrets with the Almighty which the human mind cannot penetrate. But so far as suffering and sorrow are appointed to a man and enter into his life, he is considered to have the right of inquiry regarding them, an inherent claim on God to explain them. This may be held the error of the author which he himself has to confess when he comes to the Divine interlocution. There he seems to allow the majesty of the Omnipotent to silence the questions of human reason. But this is really a confession that his own knowledge does not suffice, that he shares the ignorance of Job as well as his cry for light. The universe is vaster than he or any of the Old Testament age could even imagine. The destinies of man form part of a Divine order extending through the immeasurable spaces and the developments of eternal ages.
Once more Job perceives or seems to perceive that access to the presence of the Judge is denied. The sense of condemnation shuts him in like prison walls and he finds no way to the audience chamber. The bright sun moves calmly from east to west; the gleaming stars, the cold moon in their turn glide silently over the vault of heaven. Is not God on high? Yet man sees no form, hears no sound.
“Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet;
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.”
But Job is not able to conceive a spiritual presence without shape or voice.
“Behold, I go forward, but He is not there;
And backward, but I cannot perceive Him:
On the left hand where He doth work, but I behold Him not:
He hideth Himself on the right hand that I cannot see Him.”
Nature, thou hast taught this man by thy light and thy darkness, thy glorious sun and thy storms, the clear shining after rain, the sprouting corn and the clusters of the vine, by the power of mans will and the daring love and justice of mans heart. In all thou hast been a revealer. But thou hidest whom thou dost reveal. To cover in thought the multiplicity of, thy energies in earth and sky and sea, in fowl and brute and man, in storm and sunshine, in reason, in imagination, in will and love and hope; -to attach these one by one to the idea of a Being almighty, infinite, eternal, and so to conceive this God of the universe-it is, we may say, a superhuman task. Job breaks down in the effort to realise the great God. I took behind me, into the past. There are the footprints of Eloah when He passed by. In the silence an echo of His step may be heard; but God is not there. On the right hand, away beyond the hills that shut in the horizon, on the left hand where the ways leads to Damascus and the distant north-not there can I see His form; nor out yonder where day breaks in the east. And when I travel forward in imagination, I who said that my Redeemer shall stand upon the earth, when I strive to conceive His form, still, in utter human incapacity, I fail. “Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself.”
And yet, Jobs conviction of his own uprightness, is it not Gods witness to his spirit? Can he not be content with that? To have such a testimony is to have the very verdict he desire. Well does Boethius, a writer of the old world though he belonged to the Christian age, press beyond Job where he writes:
“He is always Almighty, because He always wills good and never any evil. He is always equally gracious. By His Divine power He is everywhere present. The Eternal and Almighty always sits on the throne of His power. Thence He is able to see all, and renders to every one with justice, according to his works. Therefore it is. not in vain that we have hope in God; for He changes not as we do. But pray ye to Him humbly, for He is very bountiful and very merciful. Hate and fly from evil as ye best may. Love virtues and follow them. Ye have great need that ye always do well, for ye always in the presence of the Eternal and Almighty God do all that ye do. He beholds it all, and He will recompense it all.”
Amiel, on the other hand, would fain apply to Job a reflection which has occurred to himself in one of the moods that come to a man disappointed, impatient of his own limitations. In his journal, under date January 29th, 1866, he writes:
“It is but our secret self-love which is set upon this favour from on high; such may be our desire, but such is not the will of God. We are to be exercised, humbled, tried and tormented to the end. It is our patience which is the touchstone of our virtue. To bear with life even when illusion and hope are gone; to accept this position of perpetual war, while at the same time loving only peace; to stay patiently in the world, even when it repels us as a place of low company and seems to us a mere arena of bad passions; to remain faithful to ones own faith without breaking with the followers of false gods; to make no attempt to escape from the human hospital, long-suffering and patient as Job upon his dunghill; -this is duty.”
An evil mood prompts Amiel to write thus. A thousand times rather would one hear him crying like Job on the great Judge and Redeemer and complaining that the Goal hides Himself. It is not in bare self-love or self-pity Job seeks acquittal at the bar of God; but in the defence of conscience, the spiritual treasure of mankind and our very life. No doubt his own personal justification bulks largely with Job, for he has strong individuality. He will not be overborne. He stands at bay against his three friends and the unseen adversary. But he loves integrity, the virtue, first; and for himself he cares as the representative of that which the Spirit of God gives to faithful men. He may cry, therefore, he may defend himself, he may complain; and God will not cast him off.
“For He knoweth the way that I take;
If He tried me, I should come forth as gold.
My foot hath held fast to His steps,
His way have I kept, and not turned aside.
I have not gone back from the commandments of His lips;
I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my needful food.”
Bravely, not in mere vaunt he speaks, and it is good to hear him still able to make such a claim. Why do we not also hold fast to the garment of our Divine Friend? Why do we not realise and exhibit the resolute godliness that anticipates judgment: “If He tried me, I should come forth as gold”? The psalmists of Israel stood thus on their faith; and not in vain, surely, has Christ called us to be like our Father who is in heaven.
But again from brave affirmation Job falls back exhausted.
Oh thou Hereafter! on whose shore I stand-
Waiting each toppling moment to engulf me.
What am I? Say thou Present! say thou Past!
Ye three wise children of Eternity-
A life?-A death?-and an immortal?-All?
Is this the threefold mystery of man?
The lower, darker Trinity of earth?
It is vain to ask.
Nought answers me-not God.
The air grows thick and dark.
The sky comes down.
The sun draws round him streaky clouds-like God
Gleaning up wrath.
Hope hath leapt off my heart,
Like a false sibyl, fear-smote, from her seat,
And overturned it.
So, as Bailey makes his Festus speak, might Job have spoken here. For now it seems to him that to call on God is fruitless. Eloah is of one mind. His will is steadfast, immovable. Death is in the cup and death will come. On this God has determined. Nor is it in Jobs case alone so sore a doom is performed by the Almighty. Many such things are with Him. The waves of trouble roll up from the deep dark sea and go over the head of the sufferer. He lies faint and desolate once more. The light fades, and with a deep sigh because he ever came to life he shuts his lips.
Natural religion ends always with a sigh. The sense of God found in the order of the universe, the dim vision of God which comes in conscience, moral life and duty, in fear and hope and love, in the longing for justice and truth-these avail much; but they leave us at the end desiring something they cannot give. The Unknown God whom men ignorantly worshipped had to be revealed by the life and truth and power of the Man Christ Jesus. Not without this revelation, which is above and beyond nature, can our eager quest end in satisfying knowledge. In Christ alone the righteousness that justifies, the love that compassionates, the wisdom that enlightens are brought into the range of our experience and communicated through reason to faith.
In chapter 24 there is a development of the reasoning contained in Jobs reply to Zophar in the second colloquy, and there is also a closer examination of the nature and results of evildoing than has yet been attempted. In the course of his acute and careful discrimination Job allows something to his friends side of the argument, but all the more emphasises the series of vivid touches by which the prosperous tyrant is represented. He modifies to some extent his opinion previously expressed that all goes well with the wicked. He finds that certain classes of miscreants do come to confusion, and he separates these from the others, at the same time separating himself beyond question from the oppressor on this side and the murderer and adulterer on that. Accepting the limits of discussion chosen by the friends he exhausts the matter between himself and them. By the distinctions now made and the choice offered, Job arrests personal accusation, and of that we hear no more.
Continuing the idea of a Divine assize which has governed his thought throughout this reply, Job asks why it should not be held openly from time to time in the worlds history.
“Why are times not set by the Almighty?
And why do not they who know Him see His days?”
Emerson says the world is full of judgment days; Job thinks it is not, but ought to be. Passing from his own desire to have access to the bar of God and plead there, he now thinks of an open court, a public vindication of Gods rule. The Great Assize is never proclaimed. Ages go by; the Righteous One never appears. All things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. Men struggling, sinning, suffering, doubt or deny the existence of a moral Ruler. They ask, Who ever saw this God? If He exists, He is so separate from the world by His own choice that there is no need to consider Him. In pride or in sorrow men raise the question. But no God means no justice, no truth, no penetration of the real by the ideal; and thought cannot rest there.
With great vigour and large knowledge of the world the writer makes Job point out the facts of human violence and crime, of human condonation and punishment. Look at the oppressors and those who cringe under them, the despots never brought to justice, but on the contrary growing in power through the fear and misery of their serfs. Already we have seen how perilous it is to speak falsely for God. Now we see, on the other hand, that whoever speaks truly of the facts of human experience prepares the way for a true knowledge of God. Those who have been looking in vain for indications of Divine justice and grace are to learn that not in deliverance from the poverty and trouble of this world but in some other way they must realise Gods redemption. The writer of the book is seeking after that kingdom which is not meat and drink nor long life and happiness, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Observe first, says Job, the base and cruel men who remove landmarks and claim as their own a neighbours heritage, who drive into their pastures flocks that are not theirs, who even take away the one ass of the fatherless and the one ox the widow has for ploughing her scanty fields, who thus with a high hand overbear all the defenceless people within their reach. Zophar had charged Job with similar crimes, and no direct reply was given to the accusation. Now, speaking strongly of the iniquity of such deeds, Job makes his accusers feel their injustice towards him. There are men who do such things. I have seen them, wondered at them, been amazed that they were not struck down by the hand of God. My distress is that I cannot understand how to reconcile their immunity from punishment with my faith in Him whom I have served and trusted as my Friend.
The next picture, from the fifth to the eighth verse (Job 24:5-8) , shows in contrast to the tyrants pride and cruelty the lot of those who suffer at his hands. Deprived of their land and their flocks, herding together in common danger and misery like wild asses, they have to seek for their food such roots and wild fruits as can be found here and there in the wilderness. Half enslaved now by the man who took away their land they are driven to the task of harvesting his fodder and gathering the gleanings of his grapes. Naked they lie in the field, huddling together for warmth, and out among the hills they are wet with the impetuous rams, crouching in vain under the ledges of the rock for shelter.
Worse things too are done, greater sufferings than these have to be endured. Men there are who pluck the fatherless child from the mothers breast, claiming the poor little life as a pledge. Miserable debtors, faint with hunger, have to carry the oppressors sheaves of corn. They have to grind at the oil presses, and with never a cluster to slake their thirst tread the grapes in the hot sun. Nor is it only in the country cruelties are practised. Perhaps in Egypt the writer has seen what he makes Job describe, the misery of city life. In the city the dying groan uncared for, and the soul of the wounded crieth out. Universal are the scenes of social iniquity. The world is full of injustice. And to Job the sting of it all is that “God regardeth not the wrong.”
Men talk nowadays as if the penury and distress prevalent in our large towns proved the churches to be unworthy of their name and place. It may be so. If this can be proved, let it be proved; and if the institution called The Church cannot justify its existence and its Christianity where it should do so by freeing the poor from oppression and securing their rights to the weak, then let it go to the wall. But here is Job carrying the accusation a stage farther, carrying it, with what may appear blasphemous audacity, to the throne of God. He has no church to blame, for there is no church. Or, he himself represents what church there is. And as a witness for God, what does he find to be his portion? Behold him, where many a servant of Divine righteousness has been in past times and is now, down in the depths, poorest of the poor, bereaved, diseased, scorned, misunderstood, hopeless. Why is there suffering? Why are there many in our cities outcasts of society, such as society is? Jobs case is a partial explanation; and here the church is not to blame. Pariahs of society, we say. If society consists to any great extent of oppressors who are enjoying wealth unjustly gained, one is not so sure that there is any need to pity those who are excluded from society. Am I trying to make out that it may be well there are oppressors, because oppression is not the worst thing for a brave soul? No: I am only using the logic of the Book of Job in justifying Divine providence. The church is criticised and by many in these days condemned as worthless because it is not banishing poverty. Perhaps it might be more in the way of duty and more likely to succeed if it sought to banish excessive wealth. Are we of the twentieth Christian century to hold still by the error of Eliphaz and the rest of Jobs friends? Are we to imagine that those whom the gospel blesses it must of necessity enrich, so that in their turn they may be tempted to act the Pharisee? Let us be sure God knows how to govern His world. Let us not doubt His justice because many are very poor who have been guilty of no crimes and many very rich who have been distinguished by no virtues. It is our mistake to think that all would be well if no bitter cries were heard in the midnight streets and every one were secured against penury. While the church is partly to blame for the state of things, the salvation of society will not be found in any earthly socialism. On that side lies a slough as deep as the other from which it professes to save. The large Divine justice and humanity which the world needs are those which Christ alone has taught, Christ to whom property was only something to deal with on the way to spiritual good, -humility, holiness, love, and faith.
The emphatic “These” with which Job 24:13 begins must be taken as referring to the murderer and adulterer immediately to be described. Quite distinct from the strong oppressors who maintain themselves in high position are these cowardly miscreants who “rebel against the light” (Job 24:13), who “in the dark dig through houses” and “know not the light” (Job 24:16), to whom “the morning is as the shadow of death,” whose “portion is cursed in the earth.” The passage contains Jobs admission that there are vile transgressors of human and Divine law whose unrighteousness is broken as a tree (Job 24:20). Without giving up his main contention as to high-handed wickedness prospering in the world he can admit this; nay, asserting it, he strengthens his position against the arguments of his friends. The murderer who rising towards daybreak waylays and kills the poor and needy for the sake of their scanty belongings, the adulterer who waits for the twilight, disguising his face, and the thief who in the dark digs through the clay wall of a house these do find the punishment of their treacherous and disgusting crimes in this life. The coward who is guilty of such sin is loathed even by the mother who bore him and has to skulk in by ways, familiar with the terrors of the shadow of death, daring, not to turn in the way of the vineyards to enjoy their fruit. The description of these reprobates ends with the twenty-first verse, and then there is a return to the “mighty” and the Divine support they appear to enjoy.
The interpretation of Job 24:18-21 which makes them “either actually in part the work of a popular hand, or a parody after the popular manner by Job himself,” has no sufficient ground. To affirm that the passage is introduced ironically and that Job 24:22 resumes the real history of the murderer, the adulterer, and the thief is to neglect the distinction between those “who rebel against the light” and the mighty who live in the eye of God. The natural interpretation is that which makes the whole a serious argument against the creed of the friends. In their eagerness to convict Job they have failed to distinguish between men whose base crimes bring them under social reprobation and the proud oppressors who prosper through very arrogance. Regarding these the fact still holds that apparently they are under the protection of Heaven.
Yet He sustaineth the mighty by His power,
They rise up though they despaired of life.
He giveth them to be safe, and they are unheld,
And His eyes are upon their ways.
They rise high: in a moment they are not;
They are brought low, like all others gathered in.
And cut off as the tops of corn.
If not-who then will make me a liar,
And to nothing bring my speech?
Is the daring right-defying evildoer wasted by disease, preyed upon by terror? Not so. When he appears to have been crushed, suddenly he starts up again in new vigour, and when he dies, it is not prematurely but in the ripeness of full age. With this reaffirmation of the mystery of Gods dealings Job challenges his friends. They have his final judgment. The victory he gains is that of one who will be true at all hazards. Perhaps in the background of his thought is the vision of a redemption not only of his own life but of all those broken by the injustice and cruelty of this earth.