Job 24 DBY
Summary: Job shifts to describing broader social injustice in the world, asking why the Almighty does not set fixed times of judgment, since the wicked move boundary stones, steal livestock, and drive away the fatherless and the widow's ox, forcing the poor into hiding and gleaning in others' fields. He describes the desperate poor going about naked and hungry, carrying sheaves for others while starving themselves, and the oppressed groaning in the city, yet notes that God seemingly "layeth not folly to them" (v. 12), allowing murderers, adulterers, and thieves to operate under cover of darkness with apparent impunity. Job's point throughout is that the tidy moral order his friends insist on does not match the disordered reality of injustice he observes.
1Why are not times treasured up with the Almighty? why do not they that know him see his days?
2They remove the landmarks; they violently take away the flocks and pasture them;
3They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow's ox for a pledge;
4They turn the needy out of the way: the afflicted of the land all hide themselves.
5Lo, [as] wild asses in the desert, they go forth to their work, seeking early for the prey: the wilderness [yieldeth] them food for [their] children.
6They reap in the field the fodder thereof, and they gather the vintage of the wicked;
7They pass the night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold;
8They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and for want of a shelter embrace the rock...
9They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor:
10These go naked without clothing, and, hungry, they bear the sheaf;
11They press out oil within their walls, they tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst.
12Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out; andGod imputeth not the impiety.
13There are those that rebel against the light; they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof.
14The murderer riseth with the light, killeth the afflicted and needy, and in the night is as a thief.
15And the eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me; and he putteth a covering on [his] face.
16In the dark they dig through houses; by day they shut themselves in; they know not the light:
17For the morning is to them all [as] the shadow of death; for they are familiar with the terrors of the shadow of death.
18He is swift on the face of the waters; their portion is cursed on the earth: he turneth not unto the way of the vineyards.
19Drought and heat consume snow waters; so doth Sheol those that have sinned.
20The womb forgetteth him; the worm feedeth sweetly on him: he shall be no more remembered; and unrighteousness is broken as a tree, —
21He that despoileth the barren that beareth not, and doeth not good to the widow:
22He draweth also the mighty with his power; he riseth up, and no [man] is sure of life.
23[God] setteth him in safety, and he resteth thereon; but his eyes are upon their ways.
24They are exalted for a little, and are no more; they are laid low; like all [other] are they gathered, and are cut off as the tops of the ears of corn.
25If it be not so now, who will make me a liar, and make my speech nothing worth?
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