1 Wherefore are not bounds reserved by the Almighty,
And they who honour Him see not His days?
2 They remove the landmarks,
They steal flocks and shepherd them.
3 They carry away the ass of the orphan,
And distrain the ox of the widow.
4 They thrust the needy out of the way,
The poor of the land are obliged to slink away together.
The supposition that the text originally stood מדּוּע לרשׁעים משּׁדּי is natural; but it is at once destroyed by the fact that Job 24:1 becomes thereby disproportionately long, and yet cannot be divided into two lines of comparatively independent contents. In fact, לרשׁעים is by no means absolutely necessary. The usage of the language assumes it, according to which את followed by the genitive signifies the point of time at which any one's fate is decided. Isaiah 13:22; Jeremiah 27:7; Ezekiel 22:3; Ezekiel 30:3; the period when reckoning is made, or even the terminus ad quem , Ecclesiastes 9:12; and ywm followed by the gen. of a man, the day of his end, Job 15:32; Job 18:20; Ezekiel 21:30, and freq.; or with יהוה , the day when God's judgment is revealed, Joel 1:15, and freq. The boldness of poetic language goes beyond this usage, by using עתּים directly of the period of punishment, as is almost universally acknowledged since Schultens' day, and ימיו dna ,y of God's days of judgment or of vengeance;
(Note: On עתים , in the sense of times of retribution, Wetzstein compares the Arab. ‛idât , which signifies predetermined reward or punishment; moreover, עת is derived from עדת (from ועד ), and עתּים is equivalent to עדתּים , according to the same law of assimilation, by which now-a-days they say לתּי instead of לדתּי (one who is born on the same day with me, from Arab. lidat , lida ), and רתּי instead of רדתּי (my drinking-time), since the assimilation of the ד takes place everywhere where ת is pronounced. The ת of the feminine termination in עתים , as in שׁקתות and the like, perhaps also in בתים ( bâttim ), is amalgamated with the root.)
and it is the less ambiguous, since צפן , in the sense of the divine predetermination of what is future, Job 15:20, especially of God's storing up merited punishment, Job 21:19, is an acknowledged word of our poet. On מן with the passive, vid., Ew. §295, c (where, however, Job 28:4 is erroneously cited in its favour); it is never more than equivalent to ἀπό , for to use מן directly as ὑπό with the passive is admissible neither in Hebrew nor in Arabic. ידעו ( Keri ידעיו , for which the Targ. unsuitably reads ידעי ) are, as in Psalms 36:11; Psalms 87:4, comp. supra , Job 18:21, those who know God, not merely superficially, but from experience of His ways, consequently those who are in fellowship with Him. לא חזוּ is to be written with Zinnorith over the לא , and Mercha by the first syllable of חזו . The Zinnorith necessitates the retreat of the tone of חזו to its first syllable, as in כי־חרה , Psalms 18:8 (Bär's Pslaterium , p. xiii.); for if חזו remained Milra, לא ought to be connected with it by Makkeph , and consequently remain toneless ( Psalter , ii. 507).
Next follows the description of the moral, abhorrence which, while the friends (Job 22:19) maintain a divine retribution everywhere manifest, is painfully conscious of the absence of any determination of the periods and days of judicial punishment. Fearlessly and unpunished, the oppression of the helpless and defenceless, though deserving of a curse, rages in every form. They remove the landmarks; comp. Deuteronomy 27:17, “Cursed is he who removeth his neighbour's landmark” ( מסּיג , here once written with שׂ , while otherwise השּׂיג from נשׂג signifies assequi , on the other hand הסּיג from סוּג signifies dimovere ). They steal flocks, ויּרעוּ , i.e., they are so barefaced, that after they have stolen them they pasture them openly. The ass of the orphans, the one that is their whole possession, and their only beast for labour, they carry away as prey ( נהג , as e.g., Isaiah 20:4); they distrain, i.e., take away with them as a pledge (on חבל , to bind by a pledge, obstringere , and also to take as a pledge, vid., on Job 22:6, and Köhler on Zechariah 11:7), the yoke-ox of the widow (this is the exact meaning of שׁור , as of the Arab. thôr ). They turn the needy aside from the way which they are going, so that they are obliged to wander hither and thither without home or right: the poor of the land are obliged to hide themselves altogether. The Hiph . הטּה , with אביונים as its obj., is used as in Amos 5:12; there it is used of turning away from a right that belongs to them, here of turning out of the way into trackless regions. אביון (vid., on Job 29:16) here, as frequently, is the parallel word with ענו , the humble one, the patient sufferer; instead of which the Keri is עני , the humbled, bowed down with suffering (vid., on Psalms 9:13). ענוי־ארץ without any Keri in Psalms 76:10; Zephaniah 2:3, and might less suitably appear here, where it is not so much the moral attribute as the outward condition that is intended to be described. The Pual חכּאוּ describes that which they are forced to do.
The description of these unfortunate ones is now continued; and by a comparison with Job 30:1-8, it is probable that aborigines who are turned out of their original possessions and dwellings are intended (comp. Job 15:19, according to which the poet takes his stand in an age in which the original relations of the races had been already disturbed by the calamities of war and the incursions of aliens). If the central point of the narrative lies in Haurân, or, more exactly, in the Nukra, it is natural, with Wetzstein, to think of the Arab. 'hl 'l - wukr or ‛rb 'l - ḥujr , i.e., the (perhaps Ituraean) “races of the caves” in Trachonitis.
5 Behold, as wild asses in the desert,
They go forth in their work seeking for prey,
The steppe is food to them for the children.
6 In the field they reap the fodder for his cattle,
And they glean the vineyard of the evil-doer.
7 They pass the night in nakedness without a garment,
And have no covering in the cold.
8 They are wet with the torrents of rain upon the mountains,
And they hug the rocks for want of shelter.
The poet could only draw such a picture as this, after having himself seen the home of his hero, and the calamitous fate of such as were driven forth from their original abodes to live a vagrant, poverty-stricken gipsy life. By Job 24:5, one is reminded of Psalms 104:21-23, especially since in Job 24:11 of this Psalm the פּראים , onagri (Kulans), are mentioned, - those beautiful animals
(Note: Layard, New Discoveries, p. 270, describes these wild asses' colts. The Arabic name is like the Hebrew, el - ferâ , or also himâr el - wahsh , i.e., wild ass, as we have translated, whose home is on the steppe. For fuller particulars, vid., Wetzstein's note on Job 39:5.)
which, while young, as difficult to be broken in, and when grown up are difficult to be caught; which in their love of freedom are an image of the Beduin, Genesis 16:12; their untractableness an image of that which cannot be bound, Job 11:12; and from their roaming about in herds in waste regions, are here an image of a gregarious, vagrant, and freebooter kind of life. The old expositors, as also Rosenm., Umbr., Arnh., and Vaih., are mistaken in thinking that aliud hominum sceleratorum genus is described in Job 24:5. Ewald and Hirz. were the first to perceive that Job 24:5 is the further development of Job 24:4 , and that here, as in Job 30:1, those who are driven back into the wastes and caves, and a remnant of the ejected and oppressed aborigines who drag out a miserable existence, are described.
The accentuation rightly connects פראים במדבר ; by the omission of the Caph similit., as e.g., Isaiah 51:12, the comparison (like a wild ass) becomes an equalization (as a wild ass). The perf. יצאוּ is a general uncoloured expression of that which is usual: they go forth בפעלם , in their work (not: to their work, as the Psalmist, in Psalms 104:23, expresses himself, exchanging ב for ל ). משׁחרי לטּרף , searching after prey, i.e., to satisfy their hunger (Psalms 104:21), from טרף , in the primary signification decerpere (vid., Hupfeld on Psalms 7:3), describes that which in general forms their daily occupation as they roam about; the constructivus is used here, without any proper genitive relation, as a form of connection, according to Ges. §116, 1. The idea of waylaying is not to be connected with the expression. Job describes those who are perishing in want and misery, not so much as those who themselves are guilty of evil practices, as those who have been brought down to poverty by the wrongdoing of others. As is implied in משׁחרי (comp. the morning Psalms 63:2; Isaiah 26:9), Job describes their going forth in the early morning; the children ( נערים , as Job 1:19; Job 29:5) are those who first feel the pangs of hunger. לו refers individually to the father in the company: the steppe (with its scant supply of roots and herbs) is to him food for the children; he snatches it from it, it must furnish it for him. The idea is not: for himself and his family (Hirz., Hahn, and others); for v. 6, which has been much misunderstood, describes how they, particularly the adults, obtain their necessary subsistence. There is no MS authority for reading בּלי־לו instead of בּלילו ; the translation “what is not to him” (lxx, Targ., and partially also the Syriac version) is therefore to be rejected. Raschi correctly interprets יבולו as a general explanation, and Ralbag תבואתו : it is, as in Job 6:5, mixed fodder for cattle, farrago , consisting of oats or barley sown among vetches and beans, that is intended. The meaning is not, however, as most expositors explain it, that they seek to satisfy their hunger with food for cattle grown in the fields of the rich evil-doer; for קצר does not signify to sweep together, but to reap in an orderly manner; and if they meant to steal, why did they not seize the better portion of the produce? It is correct to take the suff. as referring to the רשׁע which is mentioned in the next clause, but it is not to be understood that they plunder his fields per nefas ; on the contrary, that he hires them to cut the fodder for his cattle, but does not like to entrust the reaping of the better kinds of corn to them. It is impracticable to press the Hiph . יקצירו of the Chethib to favour this rendering; on the contrary, הקציר stands to קצר in like (not causative) signification as הנחה to נחה (vid., on Job 31:18). In like manner, Job 24:6 is to be understood of hired labour. The rich man prudently hesitates to employ these poor people as vintagers; but he makes use of their labour (whilst his own men are fully employed at the wine-vats) to gather the straggling grapes which ripen late, and were therefore left at the vintage season. the older expositors are reminded of לקשׁ , late hay, and explain ילקּשׁוּ as denom . by יכרתו לקשׁו (Aben-Ezra, Immanuel, and others) or יאכלו לקשׁו (Parchon); but how unnatural to think of the second mowing, or even of eating the after-growth of grass, where the vineyard is the subject referred to! On the contrary, לקּשׁ signifies, as it were, serotinare , i.e., serotinos fructus colligere (Rosenm.):
(Note: In the idiom of Hauran, לקשׂ , fut. i, signifies to be late, to come late; in Piel , to delay, e.g., the evening meal, return, etc.; in Hithpa. telaqqas, to arrive too late. Hence laqı̂s לקישׂ and loqsı̂ לקשׂי , delayed, of any matter, e.g., לקישׁ and זרע לקשׂי , late seed (= לקשׁ , Amos 7:1, in connection with which the late rain in April, which often fails, is reckoned on), ולד לקשׂי , a child born late (i.e., in old age); bakı̂r בכיר and bekrı̂ בכרי are the opposites in every signification. - Wetzst.)
this is the work which the rich man assigns to them, because he gains by it, and even in the worst case can lose but little.
Job 30:7 tell how miserably they are obliged to shift for themselves during this autumnal season of labour, and also at other times. Naked ( ערום , whether an adverbial form or not, is conceived of after the manner of an accusative: in a naked, stripped condition, Arabic ‛urjânan ) they pass the night, without having anything on the body (on לבוּשׁ , vid., on Psalms 22:19), and they have no ( אין supply להם ) covering or veil (corresponding to the notion of בּגד ) in the cold.
(Note: All the Beduins sleep naked at night. I once asked why they do this, since they are often disturbed by attacks at night, and I was told that it is a very ancient custom. Their clothing ( kiswe , כסוה ), both of the nomads of the steppe ( bedû ) and of the caves ( wa‛r ), is the same, summer and winter; many perish on the pastures when overtaken by snow-storms, or by cold and want, when their tents and stores are taken from them in the winter time by an enemy. - Wetzst.)
They become thoroughly drenched by the frequent and continuous storms that visit the mountains, and for want of other shelter are obliged to shelter themselves under the overhanging rocks, lying close up to them, and clinging to them, - an idea which is expressed here by חבּקוּ , as in Lamentations 4:5, where, of those who were luxuriously brought up on purple cushions, it is said that they “embrace dunghills;” for in Palestine and Syria, the forlorn one, who, being afflicted with some loathsome disease, is not allowed to enter the habitations of men, lies on the dunghill ( mezâbil ), asking alms by day of the passers-by, and at night hiding himself among the ashes which the sun has warmed.
(Note: Wetzstein observes on this passage: In the mind of the speaker, מחסה is the house made of stone, from which localities not unfrequently derive their names, as El-hasa , on the east of the Dead Sea; the well-known commercial town El-hasâ , on the east of the Arabian peninsula, which is generally called Lahsâ; the two of El-hasja ( אלחסיה ), north-east of Damascus, etc.: so that חבקו צור forms the antithesis to the comfortable dwellings of the Arab. ḥaḍarı̂ , hadarı̂ , i.e., one who is firmly settled. The roots חבק , חבך , seem, in the desert, to be only dialectically distinct, and like the root עבק , to signify to be pressed close upon one another. Thus חבקה (pronounced hibtsha ), a crowd = zahme , and asâbi‛ mahbûke ( מחבוּכה ), the closed fingers, etc. The locality, hibikke (Beduin pronunciation for habáka , חבכה with the Beduin Dag. euphonicum ), described in my Reisebericht , has its name from this circumstance alone, that the houses have been attached to (fastened into) the rocks. Hence חבּק in this passage signifies to press into the fissure of a rock, to seek out a corner which may defend one ( dherwe ) against the cold winds and rain-torrents (which are far heavier among the mountains than on the plain). The dherwe (from Arab. ḏarâ , to afford protection, shelter, a word frequently used in the desert) plays a prominent part among the nomads; and in the month of March, as it is proverbially said the dherwe is better than the ferwe (the skin), they seek to place their tents for protection under the rocks or high banks of the wadys, on account of the cold strong winds, for the sake of the young of the flocks, to which the cold storms are often very destructive. When the sudden storms come on, it is a general thing for the shepherds and flocks to hasten to take shelter under overhanging rocks, and the caverns ( mughr , Arab. mugr ) which belong to the troglodyte age, and are e.g., common in the mountains of Hauran; so that, therefore, Job 24:8 can as well refer to concealing themselves only for a time (from rain and storm) in the clefts as to troglodytes, who constantly dwell in caverns, or to those dwelling in tents who, during the storms, seek the dherwe of rock sides.)
The usual accentuation, מזרם with Dechî , הרים with Munach , after which it should be translated ab inundatione montes humectantur , is false; in correct Codd. זרם has also Munach; the other Munach is, as in Job 23:5 , Job 23:9 , Job 24:6 , and freq., a substitute for Dechî . Having sketched this special class of the oppressed, and those who are abandoned to the bitterest want, Job proceeds with his description of the many forms of wrong which prevail unpunished on the earth:
9 They tear the fatherless from the breast,
And defraud the poor.
10 Naked, they slink away without clothes,
And hungering they bear the sheaves.
11 Between their walls they squeeze out the oil;
They tread the wine-presses, and suffer thirst.
12 In the city vassals groan, And the soul of the oppressed crieth out -
And Eloah heedeth not the anomaly.
The accentuation of Job 24:9 ( יגזלו with Dechî , משׁד with Munach ) makes the relation of שׁד יתום genitival. Heidenheim (in a MS annotation to Kimchi's Lex .) accordingly badly interprets: they plunder from the spoil of the orphan; Ramban better: from the ruin, i.e., the shattered patrimony; both appeal to the Targum, which translates מביזת יתום , like the Syriac version, men bezto de - jatme (comp. Jerome: vim fecerunt depraedantes pupillos ). The original reading, however, is perhaps (vid., Buxtorf, Lex . col. 295) מבּיזא , ἀπὸ βυζίου , from the mother's breast, as it is also, the lxx ( ἀπὸ μαστοῦ ), to be translated contrary to the accentuation. Inhuman creditors take the fatherless and still tender orphan away from its mother, in order to bring it up as a slave, and so to obtain payment. If this is the meaning of the passage, it is natural to understand יחבּלוּ , Job 24:9 , of distraining; but (1) the poet would then repeat himself tautologically, vid., Job 24:3, where the same thing is far more evidently said; (2) חבל , to distrain, would be construed with על , contrary to the logic of the word. Certainly the phrase חבל על may be in some degree explained by the interpretation, “to impose a fine” (Ew., Hahn), or “to distrain” (Hirz., Welte), or “to oppress with fines” (Schlottm.); but violence is thus done to the usage of the language, which is better satisfied by the explanation of Ralbag (among modern expositors, Ges., Arnh., Vaih., Stick., Hlgst.): and what the unfortunate one possesses they seize; but this על = אשׁר על directly as object is impossible. The passage, Deuteronomy 7:25, cited by Schultens in its favour, is of a totally different kind.
But throughout the Semitic dialects the verb חבל also signifies "to destroy, to treat injuriously” (e.g., Arab. el - châbil , a by-name of Satan); it occurs in this signification in Job 34:31, and according to the analogy of הרע על , 1 Kings 17:20, can be construed with על as well as with ל . The poet, therefore, by this construction will have intended to distinguish the one חבל from the other, Job 22:6; Job 24:3; and it is with Umbreit to be translated: they bring destruction upon the poor; or better: they take undue advantage of those who otherwise are placed in trying circumstances.
The subjects of Job 24:10 are these עניים , who are made serfs, and become objects of merciless oppression, and the poet here in Job 24:10 indeed repeats what he has already said almost word for word in Job 24:7 (comp. Job 31:19); but there the nakedness was the general calamity of a race oppressed by subjugation, here it is the consequence of the sin of merces retenta laborum , which cries aloud to heaven, practised on those of their own race: they slink away ( הלּך , as Job 30:28) naked ( nude ), without ( בּלי = מבּלי , as perhaps sine = absque ) clothing, and while suffering hunger they carry the sheaves (since their masters deny them what, according to Deuteronomy 25:4, shall not be withheld even from the beasts). Between their walls ( שׁוּרת like שׁרות , Jeremiah 5:10, Chaldee שׁוּריּא ), i.e., the walls of their masters who have made them slaves, therefore under strict oversight, they press out the oil ( יצהירוּ , ἅπ. γεγρ. ), they tread the wine-vats ( יקבים , lacus ), and suffer thirst withal ( fut. consec. according to Ew. §342, a ), without being allowed to quench their thirst from the must which runs out of the presses ( נּתּות , torcularia , from which the verb דּרך is here transferred to the vats). Böttch. translates: between their rows of trees, without being able to reach out right or left; but that is least of all suitable with the olives. Carey correctly explains: “the factories or the garden enclosures of these cruel slaveholders.” This reference of the word to the wall of the enclosure is more suitable than to walls of the press-house in particular. From tyrannical oppression in the country,
(Note: Brentius here remarks: Quantum igitur judicium in eos futurum est, qui in homines ejusdem carnis, ejusdem patriae, ejusdem fidei, ejusdem Christi committunt quod nec in bruta animalia committendum est, quod malum in Germania frequentissimum est. Vae igitur Germaniae! )
Job now passes over to the abominations of discord and was in the cities.