Bible Commentary - Job 24

In this chapter, Job describes the path of the wicked and the suffering of their innocent victims.

This is definitely a tricky chapter.  In this chapter Job is blending together several different narratives, which is pretty confusing because he uses a lot of pronouns that are changing referents from one verse to another.  The overall effect is disorienting, but I’ll do my best to sort it out, on behalf of my wonderful readers.

Verse 1 sets the tone of this chapter pretty nicely.  It asks, “why do those who know him not see his days?”  This is an enigmatic statement, and represents the chapter well for that reason.  However, I’m pretty sure this is Job’s point for the whole chapter.  Basically what the “days” are talking about, is God bringing revenge or vengeance upon the wicked.  When Job asks why those who know him do not see his days, it means why do the righteous (those who know God) not see the appointed day of vengeance upon the wicked?

This verse in particular and this chapter in general is a restatement of Job’s arguments from chapter 21.  He is once again arguing that the wicked do evil things all the time, and that most of the time the wicked are not punished until after they are dead, at which point the righteous are also gone and do not get to see “God’s days”.  I think it’s reasonable to say that this is the point Job wants to make, though he doesn’t say it clearly.

Verses 2-4 describe the activity of the wicked.  Once again we see an emphasis on social injustice, with the wicked preying upon orphans, widows, “the needy” and “the poor”.  In the Pentateuch, the vulnerable groups were usually listed as orphans, widows and foreigners (e.g. Deut 27:19, Exodus 22:21-22).  Job dropped the “foreigners” from his list of vulnerable groups, and it’s hard to say exactly why, but the overall point is the same; Job views the activity of evil men as primarily being the exploitation of the weak and defenseless.  This is consistent with earlier passages in Job and seems to be a particular area of emphasis for Job.

In verses 5-8, Job smoothly transitions from speaking about abusers to speaking about the abused.  He is describing the plight of the orphans and widows, who are scavenging in the desert to find bread for their children (v. 5), gleaning from the vineyards of the wicked.  Gleaning is the process of picking up the grapes that the harvesters missed, so it’s like basically the moral equivalent of modern-day dumpster diving, picking through the garbage to try to find food that others threw away.

Verses 9-10 shift back to abusers again, who are taking away the clothing and food from the poor, sometimes as pledges (i.e. a collateral deposited for a loan).

Verses 11-12 shift back to the victims narrative, who are producing oil and treading wine, yet they cannot drink the wine that they press, because they are working for the wicked who share nothing with them.  Verse 12 also reiterates Job’s central point, that “God does not pay attention to folly”.  The wicked are free to sin and God does not punish them.

Verses 13-17 describes the wicked as “those who rebel against the light”, which is an unusual expression that I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else in the bible.  In context, it clearly means they are rebelling against what is good and honorable, but it also reiterates the contrast between light and darkness that we find in Job.  Earlier in Job we saw darkness used as a metaphor for death or suffering.

In this chapter it seems like Job shifts the focus of light and dark to become a good/evil kind of thing.  In verse 13, the wicked are rebels against the light.  In verses 14 and 15 we see evil dwelling in the darkness, with both thieves and adulterers finding their primetime in the darkness when honorable people are asleep.  In verse 16 we see “digging into houses” in the dark, referring to the practice of digging a hole into someone’s house so that you can break in and rob them without having to go through the front door.  Presumably these were mud or brick houses which permit such digging.  More strongly, verse 16 also tells us that the wicked “shut themselves up” during the day hours, since they pursue all of their activities in the darkness when they are harder to catch and most good people are asleep.

Verses 18-20 continue to describe the wicked, with an emphasis on how the wicked are cursed and will disappear from the earth.  They are “insignificant on the surface of the water… they do not turn towards the vineyards” (v. 18).  I don’t know what that means.  However, when we combine this with v. 19-20, it seems that Job is trying to express how the wicked will be wiped out somehow.

Verse 21 says once again that the wicked oppress widows and childless women.

Verses 22-24 conclude the chapter by asserting that God does, in fact, uproot the wicked.  Even though God permits them to live for a while, he is always watching them (v. 23) and in the end will cut them off like when grain is harvested from the fields (v. 24).

I’m struggling to analyze this last part because I feel like Job is contradicting himself a bit.  In verse 1 Job seems to think that God’s judgment is delayed or absent; in chapter 21 he made the same point at greater length.  Yet here at the end, in v. 22-24 he is emphasizing how God destroys the wicked and uproots them, etc.

I guess it leaves me wondering what is Job’s point with this whole chapter.  This chapter is filled with expressions about how the wicked oppress the poor and vulnerable people in society, and it seemed like Job was building up for a “God does nothing” kind of conclusion, like a cynical pattern that seems consistent with Job’s earlier statements.  Instead, the conclusion feels almost like a non sequitur to me.  Instead of building up to a conclusion that injustice fills the world, Job concludes that God is watching and the wicked will be swept away.  I don’t really know what to think about that.

In the next chapter, Bildad speaks for the final time.