Job 24:11

11 Ceux qui pressent l'huile dans leurs maisons, ceux qui foulent dans leurs pressoirs, ont soif.

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 On arrache l'orphelin à la mamelle, on prend des gages sur le pauvre,
10 On le force à marcher nu, sans vêtements, on fait porter les gerbes à des affamés.
11 Ceux qui pressent l'huile dans leurs maisons, ceux qui foulent dans leurs pressoirs, ont soif.
12 Du sein de la ville, les mourants se lamentent; l'âme des blessés crie; et Dieu ne prend pas garde à ces indignités!
13 En voici d'autres qui se révoltent contre la lumière, qui ne connaissent pas ses voies, et ne se tiennent pas dans ses sentiers.
The Ostervald translation is in the public domain.