Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 24:10

They cause [him] to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf [from] the hungry;

10. The verse carries on the idea expressed by “the poor” ( Job 24:9) the poor

Which go naked without clothing;

And hungry they carry sheaves.

The point lies in the antithesis between “hungry” and “carry sheaves”; though labouring amidst the abundant harvest of their masters they are faint with hunger themselves.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

And they take away the sheaf from the hungry – The meaning of this is, that the hungry are compelled to bear the sheaf for the rich without being allowed to satisfy their hunger from it. Moses commanded that even the ox should not be muzzled that trod out the grain Deu 25:4; but here was more aggravated cruelty than that would be, in compelling men to bear the sheaf of the harvest without allowing them even to satisfy their hunger. This is an instance of the cruelty which Job says was actually practiced on the earth, and yet God did not interpose to punish it.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 10. They cause him to go naked] These cruel, hard-hearted oppressors seize the cloth made for the family wear, or the wool and flax out of which such clothes should be made.

And they take away the sheaf] Seize the grain as soon as it is reaped, that they may pay themselves the exorbitant rent at which they have leased out their land: and thus the sheaf – the thraves and ricks, by which they should have been supported, are taken away from the hungry.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

They cause him, the poor oppressed person, to go naked without clothing; leaving him nothing, or next to nothing, to cover him in the day-time, when he should go abroad to his labour to get his living, but cannot for want of clothes to cover his nakedness.

The sheaf from the hungry; that single sheaf which the poor man had got with the sweat of his brows to satisfy his hunger, they inhumanly take away, and add it to their own stores and full barns. Or, they are hungry; or they sent them away hungry; those words being repeated out of the former clause of the verse (as is most usual); which took or carried the sheaf, or their sheaves, i.e. which reaped and gathered in the rich mans corn, for which they received injuries instead of a just recompence for their labour; and that when Gods liberality, and the bounty of the earth to them, invited and obliged them to kind and generous actions to others.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

10. (See on Job22:6). In Job 24:7 a likesin is alluded to: but there he implies open robbery ofgarments in the desert; here, the more refined robbery incivilized life, under the name of a “pledge.” Havingstripped the poor, they make them besides labor in theirharvest-fields and do not allow them to satisfy their hunger with anyof the very corn which they carry to the heap. Worse treatment thanthat of the ox, according to De25:4. Translate: “they (the poor laborers) hungering carrythe sheaves” [UMBREIT].

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

They cause [him] to go naked without clothing,…. Having taken his raiment from him for a pledge, or refusing to give him his wages for his work, whereby he might procure clothes to cover him, but that being withheld, is obliged to go naked, or next to it:

and they take away the sheaf [from] the hungry; the Vulgate Latin version renders it, “ears of corn”, such as the poor man plucked as he walked through a corn field, in order to rub them in his hand, and eat of, as the disciples of Christ, with which the Pharisees were offended, Lu 6:1; and which, according to a law in Israel, was allowed to be done, De 23:25; but now so severe were these wicked men to these poor persons, that they took away from them such ears of corn: but it is more likely that this sheaf was what the poor had gleaned, and what they had been picking up ear by ear, and had bound up into a sheaf, in order to carry home and beat it out, and then grind the corn of it, and make a loaf of it to satisfy their hunger; but so cruel and hardhearted were these men, that they took it away from them, which they had been all, or the greatest part of the day, picking up; unless it can be thought there was a custom in Job’s country, which was afterwards a law among the Jews, that if a sheaf was forgotten by the owner, and left in the field when he gathered in his corn, he was not to go back for it, and fetch it, but leave it to the poor, De 24:19; but these men would not suffer them to have it, but took it away from them; or the words may be rendered, as they are by some, “the hungry carry the sheaf” p that is, of their rich oppressive masters, who having reaped their fields for them, and bound up the corn in sheaves, carry it home for them; and yet they do not so much as give them food for their labour, or wages to purchase food to satisfy their; hunger, and so dealt with them worse than the oxen were, according to the Jewish law, which were not to be muzzled when they trod out the corn, but might eat of it, De 25:4.

p “et famelici gestant manipulum”, Tigurine version, Mercerus; so Schultens, Michaelis.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(10) They cause him to go naked without clothing.Rather, they go about, or, so that they go about, naked without clothing (the tautology is expressive in Hebrew, though meaningless in English), and an hungered they carry the sheaves.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

10. They cause is used, not in a causative but frequentative sense. (Which) go naked without clothing, and hungry they bear the sheaf. God’s care for oxen forbade that they should be muzzled while they trod the corn, Deu 25:4. Man’s cruelty degrades man to a beast of burden, and forbids him to eat of the sheaves he bears.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Job 24:10 They cause [him] to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf [from] the hungry;

Ver. 10. They cause him to go naked without clothing ] Naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to their shame and danger, as Isa 20:4 . So dealt the Popish bishops with the poor Protestant Albigenses, at the rendition of Carcasson, in France; they let them have their lives upon the condition that both men and women should go thence stark naked; those parts that cannot well be named being laid open to the view of those pope-holy cruciates (Rivet. Jesuit).

And they take away the sheaf from the hungry ] Or, the handful; that little that they had leazed; snatching the ears of corn out of their hands, and condemning them, thus denuded and despoiled, to a death which is so much the more cruel as it is tedious and languishing. Some read it thus, And those that carried their sheaves they made to go away hungry; either not feeding or not paying their harvest labourers and other servants. It is noted in history as a cruelty in the Athenians, that they put an engine about their servants’ necks called , and it reached down to their hands, that they might not so much as lick of the meal when they were sifting it.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

they take away: Deu 24:19, Amo 2:7, Amo 2:8, Amo 5:11, Amo 5:12

Reciprocal: Deu 24:14 – General Job 22:6 – stripped Job 24:7 – the naked Jer 22:13 – buildeth Eph 6:9 – ye Jam 5:4 – the hire

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge