Job 24
Big idea: The complaint widens off Job entirely and onto everyone else: landmarks moved, orphans' donkeys driven off, the poor gleaning in vineyards that are not theirs and sleeping outside in the rain with no covering. Men groan from the city, and God does not charge anyone with it.
This is the strongest social-justice passage in the book, and its grievance is not that the poor suffer but that no court date has been set.
24:1–12 — Why aren't times laid up by the Almighty?
The opening question is about a calendar: why aren't times laid up by the Almighty, and why don't those who know him see his days? Job is not asking why evil exists. He is asking why no session of court has been scheduled — the assize keeps not being held.
1 “Why aren’t times laid up by the Almighty? Why don’t those who know him see his days? 2 There are people who remove the landmarks. They violently take away flocks, and feed them. 3 They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, and they take the widow’s ox for a pledge. 4 They turn the needy out of the way. The poor of the earth all hide themselves. 5 Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, they go out to their work, seeking diligently for food. The wilderness yields them bread for their children. 6 They cut their food in the field. They glean the vineyard of the wicked. 7 They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold. 8 They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter. 9 There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor, 10 so that they go around naked without clothing. Being hungry, they carry the sheaves. 11 They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst. 12 From out of the populous city, men groan. The soul of the wounded cries out, yet God doesn’t regard the folly.
24:13–25 — They are of those who rebel against the light
The second half turns to people who need darkness to operate. They are those who rebel against the light; they don't know its ways nor stay in its paths. The murderer rises with the light and kills the poor and needy, and in the night he is like a thief. The adulterer's eye waits for twilight, saying no eye will see me, and he disguises his face. In the dark they dig through houses, and they shut themselves in by day; they don't know the light — for morning is to all of them like deep darkness.
13 “These are of those who rebel against the light. They don’t know its ways, nor stay in its paths. 14 The murderer rises with the light. He kills the poor and needy. In the night he is like a thief. 15 The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me.’ He disguises his face. 16 In the dark they dig through houses. They shut themselves up in the daytime. They don’t know the light. 17 For the morning is to all of them like thick darkness, for they know the terrors of the thick darkness. 18 “They are foam on the surface of the waters. Their portion is cursed on the earth. They don’t turn into the way of the vineyards. 19 Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so does Sheol those who have sinned. 20 The womb will forget him. The worm will feed sweetly on him. He will be no more remembered. Unrighteousness will be broken as a tree. 21 He devours the barren who don’t bear. He shows no kindness to the widow. 22 Yet God preserves the mighty by his power. He rises up who has no assurance of life. 23 God gives them security, and they rest in it. His eyes are on their ways. 24 They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone. Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of the way as all others, and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain. 25 If it isn’t so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?”
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).