Job 24:1-11

The Apparent Indifference of God

24:1 “Why are times not appointed by ¹  the Almighty? ² 

Why do those who know him not see his days?

24:2 Men ³  move boundary stones;

they seize the flock and pasture them. ⁴ 

24:3 They drive away the orphan’s donkey;

they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.

24:4 They turn the needy from the pathway,

and the poor of the land hide themselves together. ⁵ 

24:5 Like ⁶  wild donkeys in the desert

they ⁷  go out to their labor, ⁸ 

seeking diligently for food;

the wasteland provides ⁹  food for them

and for their children.

24:6 They reap fodder ¹⁰  in the field,

and glean ¹¹  in the vineyard of the wicked.

24:7 They spend the night naked because they lack clothing;

they have no covering against the cold.

24:8 They are soaked by mountain rains

and huddle ¹²  in the rocks because they lack shelter.

24:9 The fatherless child is snatched ¹³  from the breast, ¹⁴ 

the infant of the poor is taken as a pledge. ¹⁵ 

24:10 They go about naked, without clothing,

and go hungry while they carry the sheaves. ¹⁶ 

24:11 They press out the olive oil between the rows of olive trees; ¹⁷ 

they tread the winepresses while they are thirsty. ¹⁸ 

[24:1]  ¹ tn The preposition מִן (min) is used to express the cause (see GKC 389 §121.f).

[24:1]  ² tc The LXX reads “Why are times hidden from the Almighty?” as if to say that God is not interested in the events on the earth. The MT reading is saying that God fails to set the times for judgment and vindication and makes good sense as it stands.

[24:2]  ³ tn The line is short: “they move boundary stones.” So some commentators have supplied a subject, such as “wicked men.” The reason for its being wicked men is that to move the boundary stone was to encroach dishonestly on the lands of others (Deut 19:14; 27:17).

[24:2]  ⁴ tc The LXX reads “and their shepherd.” Many commentators accept this reading. But the MT says that they graze the flocks that they have stolen. The difficulty with the MT reading is that there is no suffix on the final verb – but that is not an insurmountable difference.

[24:4]  ⁵ sn Because of the violence and oppression of the wicked, the poor and needy, the widows and orphans, all are deprived of their rights and forced out of the ways and into hiding just to survive.

[24:5]  ⁶ tc The verse begins with הֵן (hen); but the LXX, Vulgate, and Syriac all have “like.” R. Gordis (Job, 265) takes הֵן (hen) as a pronoun “they” and supplies the comparative. The sense of the verse is clear in either case.

[24:5]  ⁷ tn That is, “the poor.”

[24:5]  ⁸ tc The MT has “in the working/labor of them,” or “when they labor.” Some commentators simply omit these words. Dhorme retains them and moves them to go with עֲרָבָה (’aravah), which he takes to mean “evening”; this gives a clause, “although they work until the evening.” Then, with many others, he takes לוֹ (lo) to be a negative and finishes the verse with “no food for the children.” Others make fewer changes in the text, and as a result do not come out with such a hopeless picture – there is some food found. The point is that they spend their time foraging for food, and they find just enough to survive, but it is a day-long activity. For Job, this shows how unrighteous the administration of the world actually is.

[24:5]  ⁹ tn The verb is not included in the Hebrew text but is supplied in the translation.

[24:6]  ¹⁰ tc The word בְּלִילוֹ (bÿlilo) means “his fodder.” It is unclear to what this refers. If the suffix is taken as a collective, then it can be translated “they gather/reap their fodder.” The early versions all have “they reap in a field which is not his” (taking it as בְּלִי לוֹ, bÿli lo). A conjectural emendation would change the word to בַּלַּיְלָה (ballaylah, “in the night”). But there is no reason for this.

[24:6]  ¹¹ tn The verbs in this verse are uncertain. In the first line “reap” is used, and that would be the work of a hired man (and certainly not done at night). The meaning of this second verb is uncertain; it has been taken to mean “glean,” which would be the task of the poor.

[24:8]  ¹² tn Heb “embrace” or “hug.”

[24:9]  ¹³ tn The verb with no expressed subject is here again taken in the passive: “they snatch” becomes “[child] is snatched.”

[24:9]  ¹⁴ tn This word is usually defined as “violence; ruin.” But elsewhere it does mean “breast” (Isa 60:16; 66:11), and that is certainly what it means here.

[24:9]  ¹⁵ tc The MT has a very brief and strange reading: “they take as a pledge upon the poor.” This could be taken as “they take a pledge against the poor” (ESV). Kamphausen suggested that instead of עַל (’al, “against”) one should read עוּל (’ul, “suckling”). This is supported by the parallelism. “They take as pledge” is also made passive here.

[24:10]  ¹⁶ sn The point should not be missed – amidst abundant harvests, carrying sheaves about, they are still going hungry.

[24:11]  ¹⁷ tc The Hebrew term is שׁוּרֹתָם (shurotam), which may be translated “terraces” or “olive rows.” But that would not be the proper place to have a press to press the olives and make oil. E. Dhorme (Job, 360-61) proposes on the analogy of an Arabic word that this should be read as “millstones” (which he would also write in the dual). But the argument does not come from a clean cognate, but from a possible development of words. The meaning of “olive rows” works well enough.

[24:11]  ¹⁸ tn The final verb, a preterite with the ו (vav) consecutive, is here interpreted as a circumstantial clause.