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Job 24

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Why does Shaddai not set times of judgment?

1 Why are times not stored up by Shaddai, and why do those who know Him not see His days? 2 Some move landmarks; they seize flocks and pasture them. 3 They drive away the donkey of the fatherless; they take the widow's ox as a pledge. 4 They push the needy off the road; the poor of the land all hide themselves.

5 See, like wild donkeys in the wilderness they go out to their work, seeking prey; the desert gives them food for their children. 6 In the field they reap fodder, and they glean the vineyard of the wicked. 7 They spend the night naked, without clothing, and have no covering in the cold. 8 They are wet with the rain of the mountains, and cling to the rock for lack of shelter. 9 Others snatch the fatherless child from the breast, and take a pledge from the poor. 10 They go about naked, without clothing, and hungry, they carry the sheaves. 11 Within their walls they press out oil; they tread the winepresses, yet suffer thirst. 12 From the city men groan, and the soul of the wounded cries for help; yet Eloah does not charge anyone with wrong.

Those who rebel against the light

13 There are those who rebel against the light; they do not know its ways, nor stay in its paths. 14 The murderer rises at dawn; he kills the poor and needy, and in the night he is like a thief. 15 The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight, saying, "No eye will see me," and he puts a covering on his face. 16 In the dark they dig through houses; by day they shut themselves in; they do not know the light. 17 For to all of them morning is deep darkness, for they are familiar with the terrors of deep darkness.

18 They are swiftly carried off on the face of the waters; their portion is cursed in the land; no one goes the way to their vineyards. 19 Drought and heat snatch away the snow waters; so does Sheol those who have sinned. 20 The womb forgets him; the worm feeds sweetly on him; he is no longer remembered, and injustice is broken like a tree. 21 He wrongs the barren woman who does not bear, and does no good to the widow. 22 Yet by His power He keeps the mighty alive; they rise up when they had no hope of life. 23 He gives them security, and they lean on it; and His eyes are upon their ways. 24 They are exalted a little while, and then they are gone; they are brought low and gathered up like all others; they are cut off like the heads of grain.

25 If it is not so, who will prove me a liar and make my speech worth nothing?

Notes

  • 24:1 The "times" and "His days" are most likely times of judgment, days when Elohim calls the wicked to account. Job's complaint in verses 2-12 is that the very wrongs Eliphaz charged him with, taking pledges from the poor, leaving them naked and hungry, wronging the widow and the fatherless (22:6-9), are done openly by others, and Eloah does not seem to act.
  • 24:12 "Wrong" is tiflah, the same word as in 1:22, where Job "did not charge Elohim with wrong." There Job refused to accuse Elohim; here, in his anguish, he complains that Eloah does not seem to hold the oppressors to account. Like 9:22-24, these are the honest cries of a sufferer, recorded truly (see the note at 9:22).
  • 24:18 Verses 18-24 speak of the swift end of the wicked, which sounds more like the friends' teaching than Job's complaint earlier in the chapter (verses 1-12), and how to take them is debated. Some think Job is quoting his friends' view in order to answer it, and some versions add "You say"; others take the verses as Job's own wish against the wicked, or his conviction that they rise only "a little while" (verse 24) before Elohim cuts them down; others think the order of the speeches in chapters 24-27 has been disturbed (see the note at 27:13). The TRB translates the Hebrew as it stands, without adding words.

Job 23 · Job 25

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