Job 24:11

11 They were hid in midday among the heaps of those men, that thirst, when the presses of grapes be trodden. (They make oil in shady places, and tread the winepresses, but they themselves suffer thirst.)

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 They did violence, and robbed fatherless and motherless children; and they spoiled, either robbed, the community of poor men (and they stole from, or plundered, the poor).
10 They took away ears of corn from naked men, and (those) going without cloak, and from hungry men. (They took away clothes from those who now must go naked, and ears of corn from the hungry.)
11 They were hid in midday among the heaps of those men, that thirst, when the presses of grapes be trodden. (They make oil in shady places, and tread the winepresses, but they themselves suffer thirst.)
12 They made men of (the) cities to wail, and the souls of wounded men shall cry; and God suffereth it not to go away unpunished. (In the cities men wail, and the souls of the wounded cry out; but God alloweth them not to go away unpunished.)
13 They were rebel to (the) light; they knew not the ways thereof, neither they turned again by the paths thereof. (They rebelled against the light; they knew not its ways, nor they walked by its paths.)
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.