Ch. 24. The Divine Rectitude which Job misses in his own instance he equally misses on the broad field of the World

The same thought of the absence of any righteous rule of the world is carried through this chapter and illustrated by many examples. Job turns from his own history and surveys that of the people around him, and as his own instance illustrated the misery of the just, the instances about him illustrate the felicity, the long-continued power, the freedom from visitation by God, and the natural death of the wicked. Thus both sides of his thesis are supported, that God’s rule of the world is not retributive, and that the principles insisted on by his friends find no justification in the world as it is.

Job begins by asking, Why are not times (of assize) appointed by the Almighty? and, Why do they that know Him not see His days (of judgment)? This is Job’s complaint, that God the judge and ruler of the world fails to judge and rule it in righteousness. Men do not behold Him appointing times and holding days for doing judgment on wrong, and righting the oppressed. On the contrary, the powerful tyrants oppress and the miserable poor are oppressed (Job 24:3-11), and God regards not the wrong (Job 24:12).

Besides these public wrongdoers, there are other transgressors who shun the light. The murderer, the adulterer, and the robber ply their unhallowed trade in the darkness (Job 24:13-17). And all of them, instead of being visited by God with sudden judgments, as the Friends insisted and as the popular literature described (Job 24:18-21), are upheld in power by God, made to dwell in safety, and at last brought in peace to a natural death “like all others” (Job 24:22-24).

Finally Job, too sure of his facts, exclaims, Who will make me a liar? Who will disprove the things now advanced? (Job 24:25).

1. This verse reads,

Why are not times appointed by the Almighty?

And why do they that know him not see his days?

By “times” and “days” Job means diets of assize for sitting in judgment and dispensing right among men. The speaker complains that such times and days are not appointed by the ruler and judge of the world; He fails to exercise a righteous rule; they that know Him (the godly) and look for the manifestation of His righteousness are disappointed. The A. V. why, seeing times are not hidden, &c., appears to mean, Why, seeing God has appointed judgment-days known to Himself, are the godly not permitted to perceive them? The complaint in this case does not touch the Divine rectitude itself, but only laments that it does not manifest itself to men. But the distinction is one not drawn by Job. When he complains that God does not make visible His righteous rule, his meaning is that God does not exercise such a rule. This is the thought about God that alarms him, and makes his heart soft (ch. Job 22:16).

2. Some remove] Or, there are who remove. In the absence of hedgerows or walls, the landmark defined the boundary of a man’s field or estate. Its removal was equivalent to violent appropriation of the property of another; see Deuteronomy 19:14; Hosea 5:10.

and feed thereof] Rather, and feed them. They are open and defiant in their violent wrong, they seize a flock and publicly graze it as their own.

2–4. Job now proceeds to illustrate his complaint of the absence of righteousness in God’s rule of the world. The instances are in the first place general.

3. By “the ass” and “the ox” is meant the single ass and ox which the fatherless and widow possess, needful for working their small field or affording them scanty nourishment. When deprived of these they are brought to complete destitution, and removed from the land.

4. “Turning the needy out of the way” is a general expression for doing them wrong, hindering them of their just rights; comp. Amos 5:12. The last clause “the poor hide themselves together” seems to sum up the general effect of the preceding wrongs. The poor, violently dispossessed of what belonged to them, or stripped through forms of law little different from violence (“for a pledge,” Job 24:3), and deprived of their fields, are forced to hide themselves away from men, among whom they had formerly lived in respect, and huddle together in obscure haunts.

5. The comparison to wild asses expresses their herding together, their flight far from the dwellings of men, and that they find their home and sustenance in the wilderness.

go forth to their work; rising betimes for a prey] Rather, they go forth to their work, seeking diligently for food. Their “work” is explained by “seeking for food.”

for them and for their children] Rather, food unto them for their children. The roots and herbage of the desert are the only nourishment they can find for their children; comp. ch. Job 30:3-4.

5–8. Job now directs his attention to a particular class of outcasts, giving a pathetic description of their flight from the abodes of men and their herding together like wild asses in the wilderness; their destitution, and the miseries they endure from cold and want, having only the rocks and caves to cover them, and only the roots and garbage of the desert to sustain them. The class of miserables here referred to are, no doubt, as Ewald first pointed out, the aboriginal races of the regions east of the Jordan, whose land and homes had been seized by more powerful tribes, and who had fled from the bitter oppressions to which they were subjected by their conquerors. Another detailed reference is made to them in ch. 30.

6. The verse reads,

They reap their fodder in the field,

And glean the vineyard of the wicked.

The coarse food which they can possess themselves of is called by the poet “their fodder”; it is scarcely grain; and for fruit they have only the forgotten or neglected late gleanings of the vineyard of the wicked. The term “wicked” seems to mean here the rich, inhumane lords of the soil; comp. the converse use of “rich” for “wicked,” Isaiah 53:9.

7. The verse means,

They lie all night naked, without clothing,

They have no covering in the cold.

8. The mountain rains, more violent than even those in the plain, drench these thinly-clad outcasts; and they “embrace the rock,” i. e. huddle in closely under its ledge.

9. They pluck] Or, there are who pluck. The reference is to the ruling class who, for some debt perhaps of the dependent, seize the infant of the debtor, in order by selling it or bringing it up as a slave to repay themselves.

take a pledge of the poor] The words might mean “take in pledge that which is on the poor,” i. e. their scanty clothing. Others refer the words to the preceding inhuman act of plucking the child from the breast and render: “and take this pledge of the poor” (Ew.).

9–12. These verses describe the miseries of another class, those who have allowed themselves to be subjected, and become serfs and bondmen attached to the estates of the rich. Probably they are but a portion of the same aboriginal tribes mentioned in Job 24:5-7.

10. The verse carries on the idea expressed by “the poor” (Job 24:9)—the poor

Which go naked without clothing;

And hungry they carry sheaves.

The point lies in the antithesis between “hungry” and “carry sheaves”; though labouring amidst the abundant harvest of their masters they are faint with hunger themselves.

11. A similar contrast between “tread the winepresses” and “suffer thirst.” The expression “within their walls” refers to the walled, well-protected vineyards of the rich nobility, within which these miserable serfs tread out abundant wine all the while that they themselves pant with thirst.

12. Men groan from out of the city] Rather, according to the pointing, from out of the populous city they groan. In this, however, there is no parallelism to the “soul of the wounded” in next clause. By a slight change of pointing, and as read by the Syriac, the sense is obtained: from out the city the dying groan. The phrase “from out” means merely “in connexion with” or in the cities, comp. Psalm 72:16. Reference is made to the cities in order to indicate that this injustice and cruel oppression suffered by men is universal, in city and country alike.

layeth not folly to them] Rather, regardeth not the folly, or, wrong. The same word occurred in ch. Job 1:22, see note. All this oppression is manifest on the face of the earth among men, but God giveth no heed to the wrong—He appointeth no days (Job 24:1) for doing judgment and staying the injustice.

13. They are of those] Rather, these are of them that rebel. The speaker introduces a new class of malefactors. The “light” here is of course the light of day, with the implication, however, that he that is righteous “cometh to the light.”

13–17. The outrages perpetrated by a different class of wrongdoers, the murderer (Job 24:14), the adulterer (Job 24:15), and the robber (Job 24:16). Those described in former verses pursued their violent course openly, they had law or at least custom on their side, and their cruelties did no more than illustrate the rights of property; those now mentioned are “rebels against the light” and operate under cover of the darkness.

14. with the light] i. e. toward day-break, while it is still partially dark. At such an hour the murderer waylays the solitary traveller.

is as a thief] i. e. acts the thief, becomes a thief.

15. The adulterer waits for the “twilight,” i. e. of even. Then he disguises himself, or puts a cover on his face, that he may enter undetected the house of his neighbour.

16. which they had marked] Rather, they shut (lit. seal) themselves up in the daytime. In the dark the housebreaker digs through the wall, which in many Eastern houses is of clay or soft brick; in the daytime he abides close in his own retreat; he is unacquainted with the light.

17. This verse expands the last clause of Job 24:16 :—

For the morning is to them as the shadow of death,

For they know the terrors of the shadow of death.

The “shadow of death” is equivalent almost to “midnight;” see note ch. Job 3:5. These malefactors know not the light (Job 24:16), the morning seems to them midnight, so much do they fear and shun it; but they know, they are familiar with, the terrors of midnight, for this is their day. Others make “morning” predicate, for midnight is to them (like) the morning. This, however, does not connect so closely with Job 24:16. “Shakespeare has the same thought—as indeed what thought has he not?—and tells us that ‘when the searching eye of heaven, that lights this lower world, is hid behind the globe,’

‘Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,

In murders and in outrage …

But when from under this terrestrial ball

He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,

And darts his light through every guilty hole,

Then murders, treason, and detested sins,

The cloak of night being plucked from off their backs,

Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves.’ ”

(Cox, Commentary on Job, p. 317.)

18. He is swift as the waters] Rather, he is swift upon the face of the waters. The person spoken of is the wicked man, especially such a tyrannical, proud oppressor as is alluded to in Job 24:2-4; and what is said of him is, that he is like a waif or spray on the surface of the water, swept rapidly away, and disappearing in a moment from the eyes of men in destruction; comp. ch. Job 20:28, Hosea 10:7, “As for Samaria, her king is cut off like foam (or, a twig) upon the face of the waters.”

their portion] i. e. their fields and possessions. A curse is pronounced over the estates of such men by those who behold their downfall; comp. ch. Job 5:3.

he beholdeth not] Or, he turneth not unto the way of the vineyards—he shall no more return unto the smiling vineyards in which he delighted. The joys of his luxurious life shall no more be his, misery and destruction have overtaken him. The general meaning of the phrase is the converse of that expressed by “sitting under his vine and figtree,” 1 Kings 4:25; Micah 4:4.

18–21. The popular creed regarding the fate of the wicked in God’s government of the world.

18–24. This detailed and graphic picture of the enormities of wicked men (Job 24:2-17) suggests the question, What then is the fate of such men? Are they seized by the sudden judgments of God and delivered into the hand of their own transgression (ch. Job 8:4)? or, are they prolonged in the possession of their power, protected in their wickedness, and brought to a natural and peaceful end at last like men in general? The following passage gives both answers, one in Job 24:18-21, and the other in Job 24:22-24. The former answer is that of Job’s friends, and perhaps of the common mind, a passage or fragments from a poetical expression of whose creed Job seems to cite. This answer is only introduced ironically and in order to supply the background to the true picture which Job himself draws of the history of these violent and wicked men. And this picture is a very different one.

19. As the fierce heat and drought evaporate the abundant waters of the dissolving winter snow, leaving no trace of them, so doth Sheol engulf the sinners, that they disappear without a remnant from the world; comp. ch. Job 6:15 seq., Job 14:11; Isaiah 5:14.

20. Even she whose womb bore the sinner shall forget him; none shall find pleasure in him but the worm, to whose taste he shall be sweet.

21. This verse is closely connected with the last clause of the preceding.

And wickedness shall be broken like a tree—

Even he that devoureth the barren that beareth not,

And doeth not good unto the widow.

The “tree” is a frequent object of comparison, e.g. ch. Job 19:10, “removed or plucked up like a tree,” here “broken” like a tree. The “barren that beareth not” is she that is lonely, having no sons to uphold her right, Psalm 127:3, cf. Isaiah 51:18. Pleading for, or upholding the cause of the widow is often enjoined, as in Isaiah 1:17, and the Lord Himself is said to be her “judge,” Psalm 68:5.

The broad and somewhat exaggerated colours of the preceding picture (Job 24:18-21) indicate that it is either actually in part the work of a popular hand, or that it is a parody after the popular manner by Job himself.

22. he draweth also the mighty] Rather as above, he continueth the mighty, i. e. He (God) prolongeth their life and continueth them in their place. The “mighty” are the oppressive lords of the soil, Job 24:2 seq. And it is God that upholds them by His power; comp. ch. Job 9:24.

he riseth up, and no man is sure of life] Rather as above. Even when they fall under calamity or sickness and “believe not that they shall live,” i. e. despair of recovery or of regaining their former prosperity, they are raised up again, their life and power being prolonged.

22–24. The other picture drawn by Job’s own hand to exhibit the actual truth. Such (Job 24:18-21), according to the popular imagination, is the fate and history of the wicked; the following (Job 24:22-24) is their history according to facts:

22.  Nay, he continueth the mighty by his power,

They rise up, though they believed not that they should live.

23.  He giveth them to be in safety, and they are upheld,

And his eyes are upon their ways.

24.  They are exalted: in a moment they are not;

They are brought low, and gathered in as all others,

And are cut off as the tops of the ears of corn.

23. though it be given] Rather, he giveth them to be in safety. God makes the tents of the violent men to be secure, ch. Job 12:6; He watches over them, His eyes being upon their ways; comp. ch. Job 10:3, “He shines upon the counsel of the wicked.”

24. To be translated as above. The wicked are exalted, rise high in life, and suddenly, with no pain, they die; comp. ch. Job 21:13, Psalm 73:4. And when they are brought low at last in death, it is a natural death that overtakes them, like that of all others,—men in general; and they are cut off (or, wither) like the tops of the ears of corn, not prematurely, but having attained to full ripeness; comp. Job 5:26.

25. Job alas! is only too sure of his facts, and conscious that he has history and experience at his back he victoriously exclaims, Who will make me a liar?

Job has gained his victory over his friends, but he has received, or rather inflicted on himself, an almost mortal wound in achieving it. He has shewn that God’s rule of the world is not just, in the sense in which the friends insisted that it was just, and in the sense in which his own moral feeling demanded that it should be just. God is not righteous, in the sense that he punishes wickedness with outward calamity and rewards the righteous with outward good. So far the three friends are defeated, and with their defeat on the general question their inferences from Job’s calamities as to his guilt fall to the ground. To this extent Job has gained a victory. But his victory, if it secures the possibility of his own innocence, leaves to his mind a God whom he believes to be unrighteous. For his view of what could be called “righteousness” in the Ruler of the world coincides entirely with the view of his friends.