Job 24:11

11 They press out olive oil without being allowed to taste it, and they tread in the winepress as they suffer from thirst.

Job 24:11 Meaning and Commentary

Job 24:11

[Which] make oil within their walls
Not the poor within their own walls; as if the sense was, that they made their oil in a private manner within the walls of their houses, or in their cellars, lest it should be known and taken away from them; for such cannot be thought to have had oliveyards to make oil of; rather within the walls of their rich masters, where they were kept closely confined to their work, as if in a prison; or within the walls and fences of their oliveyards, where their olive presses stood; or best of all "within the rows F17 [of] their [olive trees]", as the word signifies, where having gathered the olives, they pressed out the oil in the presses and this they did at noon, in the heat of the day, as the word F18 for making oil is observed by some to signify, and yet had nothing given them to quench their thirst, as follows:

[and] tread [their] winepresses, and suffer thirst;
after having gathered their grapes from their vines for them, they trod them in the winepresses, and made their wine, and yet would not allow them to drink of it to allay their thirst.


FOOTNOTES:

F17 (Mtrwv Nyb) "inter ordines", Mercerus, Piscator, Cocceius; so Sephorno, and some in Eliae Tishbi, p. 241.
F18 (wryhuy) "meridiati sunt", V. L. so Bolducius, Schultens.

Job 24:11 In-Context

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.
13 “Wicked people rebel against the light. They refuse to acknowledge its ways or stay in its paths.
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