Job 24:6

6 They have reaped a field that was not their own before the time: the poor have laboured in the vineyards of the ungodly without pay and without food.

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.

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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 have turned aside the weak from the right way: and the meek of the earth have hidden themselves together.

5 And they have departed like asses in the field, having gone forth on my account according to their own order: his bread is sweet to little ones.

6 They have reaped a field that was not their own before the time: the poor have laboured in the vineyards of the ungodly without pay and without food.

7 They have caused many naked to sleep without clothes, and they have taken away the covering of their body.

8 They are wet with the drops of the mountains: they have embraced the rock, because they had no shelter.