Job 24:6

6 They have to harvest fields they don't own, and gather grapes in vineyards of the wicked.

Job 24:6 Meaning and Commentary

Job 24:6

They reap [everyone] his corn in the field
Not the poor, who are obliged to reap the corn of the wicked for them without any wages, as some; but rather the wicked reap the corn of the poor; they are so insolent and impudent, that they do not take the corn out of their barns by stealth, but while it is standing in the field; they come openly and reap it down, as if it was their own, without any fear of God or men: it is observed, that the word F11 signifies a mixture of the poorer sorts of corn, which is scarce anything better than food for cattle; yet this they cut down and carry off, as forage for their horses and asses at least. Some of the ancient versions, taking it to be two words, render them, "which is not their own" F12; they go into a field that is not theirs, and reap corn that do not belong to them, that they have no right unto, and so are guilty of great injustice, and of doing injury to others:

and they gather the vintage of the wicked;
gather the grapes off of the vines of wicked men, which are gathered, as the word signifies, at the latter end of the year, in autumn; and though they belong to wicked men like themselves, yet they spare them not, but seize on all that come to hand, whether the property of good men or bad men; and thus sometimes one wicked man is an instrument of punishing another: or "the wicked gather the vintage" F13; that is, of the poor; as they reap where they have not sown, they gather of that they have not planted.


FOOTNOTES:

F11 (wlylb) "migma suum", Bolducius; "farraginem ejus [vel] suam", Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Michaelis.
F12 (ouk autwn) Sept. "non suum", V. L. so the Targum, and Aben Ezra, Grotius, Codurcus.
F13 (wvqly evr Mrkw) "et in vinea (aliena) vindemiant impii", Tigurine version; "vineasque vindemiant impii", Castalio.

Job 24:6 In-Context

4 They prevent the poor from getting their rights and force the needy to run and hide.
5 So the poor, like wild donkeys, search for food in the dry wilderness; nowhere else can they find food for their children.
6 They have to harvest fields they don't own, and gather grapes in vineyards of the wicked.
7 At night they sleep with nothing to cover them, nothing to keep them from the cold.
8 They are drenched by the rain that falls on the mountains, and they huddle beside the rocks for shelter.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. fields they don't own: [Having been cheated out of their own land, the poor are forced to work for others for very small pay.]
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.