Job 24:10

10 The poor must go about naked, without any clothing. They harvest food for others while they themselves are starving.

Job 24:10 Meaning and Commentary

Job 24:10

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, ( Luke 6:1 ) ; and which, according to a law in Israel, was allowed to be done, ( Deuteronomy 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, ( Deuteronomy 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" F16 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, ( Deuteronomy 25:4 ) .


FOOTNOTES:

F16 (rme wavn Myberw) "et famelici gestant manipulum", Tigurine version, Mercerus; so Schultens, Michaelis.

Job 24:10 In-Context

8 They are soaked by mountain showers, and they huddle against the rocks for want of a home.
9 “The wicked snatch a widow’s child from her breast, taking the baby as security for a loan.
10 The poor must go about naked, without any clothing. They harvest food for others while they themselves are starving.
11 They press out olive oil without being allowed to taste it, and they tread in the winepress as they suffer from thirst.
12 The groans of the dying rise from the city, and the wounded cry for help, yet God ignores their moaning.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.