Job 24:5-15

5 Like wild donkeys in the desert, the poor go about their labor of foraging food; the wasteland provides food for their children.
6 They gather fodder in the fields and glean in the vineyards of the wicked.
7 Lacking clothes, they spend the night naked; they have nothing to cover themselves in the cold.
8 They are drenched by mountain rains and hug the rocks for lack of shelter.
9 The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.
10 Lacking clothes, they go about naked; they carry the sheaves, but still go hungry.
11 They crush olives among the terraces[a] ; they tread the winepresses, yet suffer thirst.
12 The groans of the dying rise from the city, and the souls of the wounded cry out for help. But God charges no one with wrongdoing.
13 “There are those who rebel against the light, who do not know its ways or stay in its paths.
14 When daylight is gone, the murderer rises up, kills the poor and needy, and in the night steals forth like a thief.
15 The eye of the adulterer watches for dusk; he thinks, ‘No eye will see me,’ and he keeps his face concealed.

Job 24:5-15 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 24

This chapter contains the second part of Job's answer to the last discourse of Eliphaz, in which he shows that wicked men, those of the worst characters, prosper in the world, and go through it with impunity; he lays down this as a certain truth, that though no time is hid from God, yet they that are most familiar with him, and know most of him, do not see, and cannot observe, any days of his for judging and punishing wicked men in, this life, Job 24:1; and instances in men guilty of injustice, violence, oppression, cruelty, and inhumanity, to their neighbours, and yet God lays not folly to them, or charges them with sin, and punishes them for it, Job 24:2-12; and in persons that commit the most atrocious crimes in secret, such as murderers, adulterers, and thieves, Job 24:13-17; he allows that there is a curse upon their portion, and that the grave shall consume them, and they shall be remembered no more, Job 24:18-20; and because of their ill treatment of others, though they may be in safety and prosperity, and be exalted for a while, they shall be brought low and cut off by death, but generally speaking are not punished in this life, Job 24:21-24; and concludes with the greatest assurance of being in the right, and having truth on his side, Job 24:25.

Cross References 28

  • 1. S Genesis 16:12
  • 2. Psalms 104:23
  • 3. Job 30:3
  • 4. S Job 6:5
  • 5. ver 18
  • 6. Ruth 2:22; S 1 Kings 21:19
  • 7. S Exodus 22:27; Job 22:6
  • 8. Daniel 4:25,33
  • 9. Lamentations 4:5
  • 10. S Judges 6:2
  • 11. S Deuteronomy 24:17
  • 12. Job 29:17
  • 13. Psalms 14:4; Proverbs 30:14; Isaiah 3:14; Isaiah 10:1-2; Ezekiel 18:12
  • 14. S Leviticus 25:47; S 2 Kings 4:1
  • 15. Deuteronomy 24:12-13
  • 16. S Leviticus 19:9
  • 17. Isaiah 5:2; Isaiah 16:10; Haggai 2:16
  • 18. Micah 6:15
  • 19. S Job 12:19; Job 30:28; Psalms 5:2; Psalms 22:24; Psalms 39:12; Psalms 119:147; Isaiah 30:19; Jeremiah 50:46; Jeremiah 51:52,54; Ezekiel 26:15; Revelation 6:10
  • 20. S Job 9:23
  • 21. ver 16; Job 38:15; John 3:19-20; 1 Thessalonians 5:4-5
  • 22. Job 17:12; Job 38:20; Psalms 18:28; Isaiah 5:20; Ephesians 5:8-14
  • 23. Isaiah 3:15; Micah 3:3
  • 24. S Job 20:19; Psalms 37:32
  • 25. Psalms 10:9
  • 26. Job 31:9,27; Proverbs 1:10
  • 27. Proverbs 7:8-9
  • 28. Psalms 10:11

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. The meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.
Scripture quoted by permission.  Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.  NIV®.  Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica.  All rights reserved worldwide.