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The Apparent Indifference of God

24 “Why are times not appointed by[a] the Almighty?[b]
Why do those who know him not see his days?
Men[c] move boundary stones;
they seize the flock and pasture them.[d]
They drive away the orphan’s donkey;
they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.
They turn the needy from the pathway,
and the poor of the land hide themselves together.[e]
Like[f] wild donkeys in the wilderness,
they[g] go out to their labor[h] seeking diligently for food;
the arid rift valley[i] provides[j] food for them and for their children.
They reap fodder[k] in the field,
and glean[l] in the vineyard of the wicked.
They spend the night naked because they lack clothing;
they have no covering against the cold.
They are soaked by mountain rains
and huddle[m] in the rocks because they lack shelter.
The fatherless child is snatched[n] from the breast,[o]
the infant of the poor is taken as a pledge.[p]
10 They go about naked, without clothing,
and go hungry while they carry the sheaves.[q]
11 They press out the olive oil between the rows of olive trees;[r]
they tread the winepresses while they are thirsty.[s]
12 From the city the dying[t] groan,
and the wounded[u] cry out for help,
but God charges no one with wrongdoing.[v]

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Footnotes

  1. Job 24:1 tn The preposition מִן (min) is used to express the cause (see GKC 389 §121.f).
  2. Job 24:1 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.
  3. Job 24:2 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).
  4. Job 24:2 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.
  5. Job 24:4 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.
  6. Job 24:5 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.
  7. Job 24:5 tn That is, “the poor.”
  8. Job 24:5 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 (ʿaravah), 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.
  9. Job 24:5 tc Based on the text critical question in the previous note, some read this as a form related to the noun עֶרֶב (ʿerev, “evening”). These same consonants occur as a verb in Isa 24:11, עָרְבָה (ʿarevah) from עָרַב (ʿarav, “become evening”). This would give the time frame of their work rather than the location, but the location provides a parallel to “wilderness.”tn The rift valley (עֲרָבָה, ʿaravah) extends from Galilee to the Gulf of Aqaba, but the term normally refers only to a section of it. For the book of Job, the most likely section is that south of the Dead Sea, a section that is arid with only sparse vegetation.
  10. Job 24:5 tn The verb is not included in the Hebrew text but is supplied in the translation.
  11. Job 24:6 tc The word בְּלִילוֹ (belilo) 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, beli lo). A conjectural emendation would change the word to בַּלַּיְלָה (ballaylah, “in the night”). But there is no reason for this.
  12. Job 24:6 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.
  13. Job 24:8 tn Heb “embrace” or “hug.”
  14. Job 24:9 tn The verb with no expressed subject is here again taken in the passive: “they snatch” becomes “[child] is snatched.”
  15. Job 24:9 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.
  16. Job 24:9 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 (ʿal, “against”) one should read עוּל (ʿul, “suckling”). This is supported by the parallelism. “They take as pledge” is also made passive here.
  17. Job 24:10 sn The point should not be missed—amidst abundant harvests, carrying sheaves about, they are still going hungry.
  18. Job 24:11 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.
  19. Job 24:11 tn The final verb, a preterite with the ו (vav) consecutive, is here interpreted as a circumstantial clause.
  20. Job 24:12 tc The MT as pointed reads “from the city of men they groan.” Most commentators change one vowel in מְתִים (metim) to get מֵתִים (metim) to get the active participle, “the dying.” This certainly fits the parallelism better, although sense could be made out of the MT.
  21. Job 24:12 tn Heb “the souls of the wounded,” which here refers to the wounded themselves.
  22. Job 24:12 tc The MT has the noun תִּפְלָה (tiflah) which means “folly; tastelessness” (cf. 1:22). The verb, which normally means “to place; to put,” would then be rendered “to impute; to charge.” This is certainly a workable translation in the context. Many commentators have emended the text, changing the noun to תְּפִלָּה (tefillah, “prayer”), and so then also the verb יָשִׂים (yasim, here “charges”) to יִשְׁמַע (yishmaʿ, “hears”). It reads: “But God does not hear the prayer”—referring to the groans.

Job Complains of Violence on the Earth

24 “Why are times not kept by the Almighty,[a]
    and why do those who know him never see his days?(A)
The wicked[b] remove landmarks;
    they seize flocks and pasture them.(B)
They drive away the donkey of the orphan;
    they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.(C)
They thrust the needy off the road;
    the poor of the earth all hide themselves.(D)
Like wild asses in the desert
    they go out to their toil,
scavenging in the wasteland
    food for their young.(E)
They reap in a field not their own,
    and they glean in the vineyard of the wicked.
They lie all night naked, without clothing,
    and have no covering in the cold.(F)
They are wet with the rain of the mountains
    and cling to the rock for want of shelter.(G)

“There are those who snatch the orphan child from the breast
    and take as a pledge the infant of the poor.(H)
10 They go about naked, without clothing;
    though hungry, they carry the sheaves;
11 between their terraces[c] they press out oil;
    they tread the winepresses but suffer thirst.
12 From the city the dying groan,
    and the throat of the wounded cries for help;
    yet God pays no attention to their prayer.(I)

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Footnotes

  1. 24.1 Traditional rendering of Heb Shaddai
  2. 24.2 Gk: Heb they
  3. 24.11 Meaning of Heb uncertain