Job 24

CHAPTER 24

Job Continues (24:1–25)

1 In this first verse, Job opens with a question about God's justice, a subject he returns to throughout the chapter: Why doesn't God make judgments in a timely way? Why does He seem to delay justice, or not render it at all?

2–4 As Job looks at the world, he sees injustices everywhere. In these verses he mentions some examples: men move boundary stones in order to “steal” their neighbor's property, and they steal their neighbor's flocks as well (verse 2); they take advantage of widows and orphans (verse 3), and they oppress the poor and needy (verse 4). But all these wicked acts go unpunished (verse 12).

5–12 Here Job gives a moving account of the plight of the poor. They gather food like wild donkeys in the desert (verse 5); they go without clothes or shelter (verses 7–8); their children are made into slaves to pay debts (verse 9); they carry the grain from the field but remain hungry (verse 10); they crush the grapes to make wine but remain thirsty (verse 11). But God charges no one with wrongdoing (verse 12). Where is God's justice? Job wants to know.

13–17 Here Job continues with further examples of evil deeds. Evildoers rebel against the light⁵¹ (verse 13)—that is, they avoid the light so that their evil deeds are not exposed (see John 3:20). Job gives three examples of evildoers: the murderer (verse 14), the adulterer (verse 15), and the thief (verse 16).

18–25 In these verses, Job acknowledges that many wicked people do receive punishment; here Job almost sounds like his three friends. But Job had never said that the wicked always go unpunished; he only said they often do. Job's point is that God's justice seems sporadic and unpredictable; no one can count on it.⁵²

It is all right for us to question the workings of God's justice as long as we never forget that He is the Judge. Job's three friends thought to restrict God's freedom by saying that He must always bless the righteous and always punish the wicked. But Job knew that God was not restricted and could do as He saw fit. But this still didn't help Job understand why he and so many other innocent people in the world had to suffer.