Job 24:7-17

7 They pass the night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold;

8 They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and for want of a shelter embrace the rock ...

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

10 These go naked without clothing, and, hungry, they bear the sheaf;

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

12 Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out; and God imputeth not the impiety.

13 There are those that rebel against the light; they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof.

14 The murderer riseth with the light, killeth the afflicted and needy, and in the night is as a thief.

15 And the eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me; and he putteth a covering on [his] face.

16 In the dark they dig through houses; by day they shut themselves in; they know not the light:

17 For the morning is to them all [as] the shadow of death; for they are familiar with the terrors of the shadow of death.

Job 24:7-17 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]. Or 'take in pledge what the poor has on him.'
• [b]. Some render it, 'that they had marked in the daytime.'