Job 24:2-12

2 People move property lines to get more land; they steal sheep and put them with their own flocks.

3 They take donkeys that belong to orphans, and keep a widow's ox till she pays her debts.

4 They prevent the poor from getting their rights and force the needy to run and hide.

5 So the poor, like wild donkeys, search for food in the dry wilderness; nowhere else can they find food for their children.

6 They have to harvest fields they don't own, and gather grapes in vineyards of the wicked.

7 At night they sleep with nothing to cover them, nothing to keep them from the cold.

8 They are drenched by the rain that falls on the mountains, and they huddle beside the rocks for shelter.

9 Evil people make slaves of fatherless infants and take the children of the poor in payment for debts.

10 But the poor must go out with no clothes to protect them; they must go hungry while harvesting wheat.

11 They press olives for oil, and grapes for wine, but they themselves are thirsty.

12 In the cities the wounded and dying cry out, but God ignores their prayers.

Job 24:2-12 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.

Footnotes

• [a]. fields they don't own: [Having been cheated out of their own land, the poor are forced to work for others for very small pay.]