Job 24:6-16

6 In the field they reap their fodder, and the wicked gather the vintage that is not theirs.

7 They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no covering in the cold.

8 They are wet with the floods of the mountains and embrace the rock for want of a covering.

9 They pluck the fatherless from the breast and take a pledge of the poor.

10 They cause the naked to go without clothing, and they take away the sheaves from the hungry.

11 They press oil within their walls and tread their winepresses and suffer thirst.

12 Men groan from out of the city, and the souls of the dead cry out; yet God did not hinder them.

13 They are among those that rebel against the light; they have never known its ways nor abided in its paths.

14 The murderer rises with the light, kills the poor and the needy, and in the night is as a thief.

15 The eye of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me; and disguises his face.

16 In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the daytime; they do not know the light.

Job 24:6-16 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.