Job 24

Job asks why God seems to let the wicked go on oppressing the poor with no visible judgment. He paints a harsh picture of the helpless, and of thieves, killers and adulterers who love the dark. He ends by saying God does see, and the wicked will finally be cut down, though Job cannot understand the delay.

Job 24:1

Job asks why God does not set clear times for judgment. Those who know and trust God wait, yet never see Him step in. It is the honest cry of a believer who sees evil go unchecked and wonders why God seems slow.

BSA: judgment (“punishment, justice”): Job longs for God to put wrong right, not only to punish. days (“seasons of judgment”): These are the appointed days when God would openly act.

See also: Habakkuk 1:2-3; Psalm 13:1.

Job 24:2

The list of wrongs begins with greed. Moving a boundary stone quietly steals a neighbor’s land, and the thief then feeds on flocks he never raised. In Israel the boundary stones marked the inheritance God had given each family.

BSA: stolen (“plundered, taken by force”): The flocks are seized by force, not honestly gained.

See also: Deuteronomy 19:14.

Job 24:3

The cruel prey on the weakest: orphans and widows. Taking a widow’s ox as a pledge removes her only means of plowing and earning her bread. The law of Moses protected exactly these people.

BSA: pledge (“to guarantee a debt”): The wicked demand security for a debt from someone who has nothing, and so ruin her.

See also: Exodus 22:22; Deuteronomy 24:17.

Job 24:4

The powerful shove the needy aside, and the poor learn to hide from them. They must give up the roads and the open places of their own land to stay safe.

BSA: hiding (“to secrete or withdraw, often for safety or protection, together”): The poor flee out of sight simply to survive.

Job 24:5

The poor are like wild donkeys in the desert, rising early to search for scraps. The barren wasteland must feed their children. They live hand to mouth, with no safe home or steady food.

BSA: foraging (“searching diligently, seeking early”): They start before dawn, hunting for anything to eat.

Job 24:6

The poor must cut feed in fields that are not theirs. They glean the vineyards of wicked owners, picking up what is left. They work on land that belongs to the very people who oppress them.

BSA: glean (“gather the leftovers”): They live on what remains after the owner has taken everything he wants.

See also: Leviticus 19:9-10.

Job 24:7-8

Stripped of clothing, the poor spend freezing nights with no covering. When mountain rains soak them they press against the rocks for protection. Even the cloak taken as a pledge should have been returned by nightfall.

BSA: shelter (“refuge, safe place”): They have no safe place, only bare stone.

See also: Exodus 22:26-27.

Job 24:9

The cruelty reaches the cradle. Fatherless babies are torn from their mothers and taken as payment for debts. Job shows that the heartless prey on the most helpless of all.

BSA: snatched (“plucked violently, taken away by force”): The child is seized with violence.

Job 24:10-11

The workers go naked and hungry while carrying the grain. They press the olives and tread the grapes, yet go thirsty. They make the rich man’s plenty and share none of it. Their labor feeds others, not themselves.

BSA: thirsty (“suffer from lack of drink”): They tread the winepress yet cannot drink what they make.

Job 24:12

Groans rise from the city, and the dying cry out for help. Yet God does not seem to charge anyone with wrong. Job does not deny that God is just. He is saying that God’s justice is not yet visible to him.

BSA: wounded (“slain, hurt”): These are people struck down by violence. wrongdoing (“folly, foolish behavior”): God does not seem to treat their actions as the senseless evil they are.

Job 24:13

Now Job speaks of those who rebel against the light. Light stands for truth, goodness and God’s ways. They do not know its paths and refuse to walk in them.

BSA: light (“natural and spiritual illumination”): Light is both daylight and the moral light of what is right.

See also: John 3:19-20.

Job 24:14

The murderer gets up when daylight fades and kills the poor and needy. At night he is a thief and creeps about unseen. Evil likes the dark, where it hopes no one will see.

BSA: murderer (“one who slays, killer”): Job names the killer who hunts the helpless.

Job 24:15

The adulterer waits for twilight and tells himself no one sees him. He covers his face so no one will know him. He forgets that God sees everything.

BSA: twilight (“dusk”): He waits for the dim hour that hides him.

See also: Proverbs 7:9.

Job 24:16-17

Thieves dig through house walls at night and hide by day, strangers to the light. For them the deep darkness is morning, and its terrors are old friends. They have so given themselves to evil that darkness feels like home.

BSA: deep darkness (“shadow of death”): The word suggests darkness as deep as death.

See also: Isaiah 5:20.

Job 24:18

Job now speaks of what happens to the wicked. They are light as foam on water, swept away quickly. Their land is cursed and no one wants to walk to their vineyards. Job here seems to turn to say that the wicked are in some sense doomed, even though he has just said God is slow to act.

BSA: foam (“swiftly passing, like bubbles”): The wicked have no weight and no staying power. cursed (“vilified, brought into contempt”): Their holdings are marked by shame.

Job 24:19

Heat and drought swallow snow water, and in the same way the grave takes sinners. Death takes away those who live in sin. The image is of something that melts away until nothing is left.

BSA: Sheol (“the grave”): Sheol is the realm of the dead, where all go.

Job 24:20

Even the mother who bore them forgets them. The worm feeds on them, and no one remembers them. Injustice itself is broken like a tree. In the end the wicked leave nothing worth remembering.

BSA: remembered (“kept in mind”): Their name vanishes. No one holds on to it.

See also: Proverbs 10:7.

Job 24:21

The wicked feed on the childless and are cruel to widows. They pick on those who have no children to protect or provide for them.

BSA: kindness (“do good”): They do not do even a little good to those in need.

Job 24:22-23

Yet God uses His power to pull the mighty down. They rise up but cannot count on living. He may give them a feeling of safety, yet His eyes watch every step they take. Their security is never as firm as it feels.

BSA: power (“strength, might”): It is God’s strength that brings down the strong. eyes (“watchful care, observation”): God is never blind to what they do.

See also: Proverbs 5:21.

Job 24:24

The wicked are lifted high for a little while, then they are gone. They are gathered up like everyone else and cut off like heads of grain at harvest. Their pride has an end, like all human life.

BSA: cut off (“destroyed, clipped”): They are reaped as easily as ripe grain.

See also: Psalm 37:35-36.

Job 24:25

Job ends by daring anyone to prove him wrong. He stands by what he has said: the wicked do prosper for a time, yet God sees, and their end will come. He has no easy answer for the delay, but trusts God is watching.

BSA: liar (“deceiver, one who speaks falsehood”): Job is confident his account is honest.