Job 24:11

bors' ground, that, by contracting their boundaries, they might enlarge their own. The law of Moses denounces curses on those who remove their neighbors' landmarks. See Deu 19:14 ; Deu 27:17 , and the note on the former place, where the subject is considered at large. They violently take away flocks, and feed thereof - Mr. Good translates ירעו yiru, they destroy, deriving the word, not from רעה raah, to feed, but from רע ra, to rend, to destroy. The Septuagint had read רעה roch, a shepherd; and therefore have translated ποιμνιον συν ποιμενι ἁρπασαντες, "violently carrying off both the flock and the shepherd." Verse 4 They turn the needy out of the way - They will not permit them to go by the accustomed paths; they oblige them to take circuitous routes. When the Marquis of H. was made ranger of Richmond Park, he thought it his duty to shut up a pathway which had existed for a long time; and those who presumed, after this shutting up, to break the fence, and take that path as formerly, were prosecuted. A cobbler near the place entered an action against the marquis: the cause was tried, the marquis cast, and the path ordered to be opened, on the ground that it had, time out of mind, been a public undisputed path. When one asked the cobbler, "How he could have the boldness to go to law with the Marquis of H.?" he answered, "Because I did not like to leave the world worse than I found it." All tolerated oppression and voluntary forfeiture of ancient rights, are injurious to society at large, and they who wink at them leave the world worse than they found it. Verse 5 Rising betimes for a prey - The general sense here seems plain enough. There are some who live a lawless roaming life: make a predatory life their employment; for this purpose, frequent the wilderness, where they seize on and appropriate whatsoever they find, and by this method they and their families are supported. Mr. Good says: "The sense has never yet been understood by any commentator;" and hence he proposes a different division of the words, placing ערבה arabah, the desert or wilderness, in the first hemistich, thus: - "Rising early for the pillage of the wilderness; The bread of themselves and of their children." Others think that the words are spoken solely of the poor under the hand of oppression, who are driven away from their homes, and obliged to seek such support as the wilderness can afford. Such was originally the state of the Bedouins, and of the wandering Arab hordes in general: the oppression of the tyrannous governors obliged them to seek refuge in the deserts, where they still live in a roaming predatory life. Verse 6 They reap every one his corn in the field - This is perfectly characteristic. These wandering hordes often make sudden irruptions, and carry off the harvest of grain, olives, vines, etc., and plunge with it into the wilderness, where none can follow them. The Chaldee gives the same sense: "They reap in a field that is not their own, and cut off the vineyard of the wicked." Verse 7 They cause the naked to lodge without clothing - Or rather, They spend the night naked, without clothing; and without a covering from the cold: another characteristic of the wandering Arabs. They are ill-fed, ill-clothed. and often miserable off, even for tents. They can have little household stuff: as they are plunderers, they are often obliged to fly for their lives, and cannot encumber themselves with what is not absolutely needful. Verse 8 They are wet with the showers of the mountains - Mr. Good thinks that torrents, not showers, is the proper translation of the original זרם zerem; but I think showers of the mountain strictly proper. I have seen many of these in mountainous countries, where the tails of water-spouts have been intercepted and broken, and the outpouring of them would be incredible to those who have never witnessed similar phenomena. The rain fell in torrents, and produced torrents on the land, carrying away earth and stones and every thing before them, scooping out great gullies in the sides of the mountains. Mountain torrents are not produced but by such extraordinary outpourings of rain, formed either by water-spouts, or by vast masses of clouds intercepted and broken to pieces by the mountain tops. And embrace the rock for want of a shelter - In such cases as that related above, the firm rock is the only shelter which can be found, or safely trusted. Verse 9 They pluck the fatherless from the breast - They forcibly take young children in order that they may bring them up in a state of slavery. This verse is the commencement of a new paragraph, and points out the arbitrary dealings of oppressors, under despotic governors. Take a pledge of the poor - Oppressive landlords who let out their grounds at an exorbitant rent, which the poor laborers, though using the utmost diligence, are unable at all times to pay; and then the unfeeling wretch sells then up, as the phrase here is, or takes their cow, their horse, their cart, or their bed, in pledge, that the money shall be paid in such a time. This is one of the crying sins of some countries of Europe. Verse 10 They cause him to go naked - These cruel, hard-hearted oppressors seize the cloth made for the family wear, or the wool and flax out of which such clothes should be made. And they take away the sheaf - Seize the grain as soon as it is reaped, that they may pay themselves the exorbitant rent at which they have leased out their land: and thus the sheaf - the thraves and ricks, by which they should have been supported, are taken away from the hungry. Verse 11 Make oil within their walls - Thus stripped of all that on which they depended for clothing and food, they are obliged to become vassals to their lord, labor in the fields on scanty fare, or tread their wine-presses, from the produce of which they are not permitted to quench their thirst. Verse 12 Men groan from out of the city - This is a new paragraph. After having shown the oppressions carried on in the country, he takes a view of those carried on in the town. Here the miseries are too numerous to be detailed. The poor in such places are often in the most wretched state; they are not only badly fed, and miserably clothed, but also most unwholesomely lodged. I was once appointed with a benevolent gentleman, J. S., Esq., to visit a district in St. Giles's London, to know the real state of the poor. We took the district in House Row, and found each dwelling full of people, dirt, and wretchedness. Neither old nor young had the appearance of health: some were sick, and others lying dead, in the same place! Several beds, if they might be called such, on the floor in the same apartment; and, in one single house, sixty souls! These were groaning under various evils; and the soul of the wounded, wounded in spirit, and afflicted in body, cried out to God and man for help! It would have required no subtle investigation to have traced all these miseries to the doors, the hands, the lips, and the hearts, of ruthless landlords; or to oppressive systems of public expenditure in the support of ruinous wars, and the stagnation of trade and destruction of commerce occasioned by them: to which must be added the enormous taxation to meet this expenditure. Yet God layeth not folly to them - He does not impute their calamities to their own folly. Or, according to the Vulgate, Et Deus inultum abire non patitur; "And God will not leave (these disorders) unpunished." But the Hebrew may be translated And God doth not attend to their prayers. Job's object was to show, in opposition to the mistaken doctrine of his friends, that God did not hastily punish every evil work, nor reward every good one. That vice often went long unpunished, and virtue unrewarded; and that we must not judge of a man's state either by his prosperity or adversity. Therefore, there might be cases in which the innocent oppressed poor were crying to God for a redress of their grievances, and were not immediately heard; and in which their oppressors were faring sumptuously every day, without any apparent mark of the Divine displeasure. These sentiments occur frequently. Verse 13 They - rebel against the light - Speaking of wicked men. They rebel against the light of God in their consciences, and his light in his word. They are tyrants in grain, and care neither for God nor the poor. They know not the ways thereof - they will not learn their duty to God or man. Nor abide in the paths thereof - if brought at any time to a better mind, they speedily relapse; and are steady only in cruelty and mischief. This is the character of the oppressors of suffering humanity, and of sinners audacious and hardened. This whole verse Mr. Good translates in the following manner: - They are indignant of the light; They respect not its progress; And will not return to its paths. They hate good; they regard not its operation; they go out of the way of righteousness, and refuse to return. Verse 14 The murderer rising with the light - Perhaps the words should be read as Mr. Good has done: - With the daylight ariseth the murderer; Poor and needy, he sheddeth blood. This description is suitable to a highwayman; one who robs in daylight, and who has been impelled by poverty and distress to use this most unlawful and perilous mode to get bread; and for fear of being discovered or taken, commits murder, and thus adds crime to crime. In the night is as a thief - Having been a highwayman in the daytime, he turns footpad or housebreaker by night; and thus goes on from sin to sin. There have been several instances like the case above, where poverty and distress have induced a man to go to the highway and rob, to repair the ruin of himself and family. I shall introduce an authentic story of this kind, which the reader may find at the end of this chapter. Verse 15 The eye also of the adulterer - This is another sin particularly of the city. The adulterer has made his assignation; he has marked the house of her into whose good graces he has insinuated himself, called digging through the house; he waits impatiently for the dusk; and then goes forth, having muffled or disguised his face, and spends a criminal night with the faithless wife of another man. The morning dawns: but it is to him as the shadow of death, lest he should be detected before he can reach his own home. And if one know him - if he happen to be recognized in coming out of the forbidden house; the terrors of death seize upon him, being afraid that the thing shall be brought to light, or that he shall be called to account, a sanguinary account, by the injured husband. This seems to be the general sense of the very natural picture which Job draws in the Job 24:15 , Job 24:16 , and Job 24:17 . Verse 16 In the dark they dig through houses - Thieves in Bengal very frequently dig through the mud wall and under the clay floors of houses, and, entering unperceived, plunder them while the inhabitants are asleep. Mr. Good's version of this paragraph I shall lay before the reader: - Job 24:15 For the dark too watcheth the eye of the adulterer;Exclaiming, No eye shall behold me.Then putteth he the muffler on his face; Job 24:16 He wormeth into houses amidst the darkness.In the daytime they seal themselves up,They know not the light: Job 24:17 For, the dawn they reckon to themselves as the death-shade;The horrors of the death-shade as it returneth. Verse 18 He is swift as the waters - Literally, Light is he on the face of the waters: and cursed shall be their portion on the earth, which Mr. Good translates: - Miserable is this man on the waters: Deeply miserable the lot of those on dry land. He beholdeth not the way of the vineyards - These no longer flourish or bring forth fruit. The labor of the vintage fails. Verse 19 Drought and heat consume the snow-waters - The public cisterns or large tanks which had been filled with water by the melting of the snow on the mountains, and which water was stored for the irrigation of their lands, had been entirely exhausted by the intensity of the heat, and the long continuance of drought. So doth the grave those which have sinned - For this whole paragraph we have only two words in the original; viz., שאול חטאו sheol chatau, "the pit, they have sinned;" which Mr. Good translates: - "They fall to their lowest depth." I believe the meaning to be, - even the deepest tanks, which held most water, and retained it longest, had become exhausted; so that expectation and succor were cut off from this as well as from every other quarter. I have elsewhere shown that שאול sheol signifies, not only hell and the grave, but any deep pit; and, also, that חטא chata signifies to miss the mark. Mr. Good, properly aware of these acceptations of the original words, has translated as above; and it is the only ground on which any consistent meaning can be given to the original. Verse 20 The womb shall forget him - The mother that bare him shall have no affection for him, nor be afflicted at his death. But the word רחם rechem signifies compassion, mercy. Mercy shall be unmindful of him. How dreadful such a state! When mercy itself forgets the sinner, his perdition slumbereth not. The worm shall feed sweetly on him - The Chaldee has, "The cruel, who have neglected to commiserate the poor, shall be sweet to the worms." He shall be brought into a state of the greatest degradation, and shall be no more remembered. And wickedness shall be broken as a tree - He shall be as a rotten or decayed tree, easily broken to pieces. If it were clear that עולה avlah, here rendered wickedness, has the same sense as עלה aleh, a leaf, sucker, or shoot, then we might translate according to the ingenious version of Mr. Good; viz., But the shoot shall be broken off as a tree; which might, in this case, be supposed to refer to illicit commerce, the fruit of the womb becoming abortive. Verse 21 He evil entreateth the barren - I believe the original word ולה should be translated he feedeth, and so the Vulgate understood the word: Pavit enim sterilem. He has been kind to the barren woman; but he has done no good to the widow. He has shown no mercy to large families; he has been an enemy to the procreation of children. Though he may, for particular reasons, have provided for a barren woman; yet the widow he has not comforted, she being old or infirm, or such as might not suit his purpose. Verse 22 He draweth also the mighty - Calmet gives the following version of the original: "He draws with him guards for his defense; he raises himself up, and does not feel assured of his life." In the midst even of his guards he is afraid; and dares not put confidence in any person. This is an admirable delineation of the inquietudes and terrors of a tyrant. Verse 23 Though it be given him to be in safety - The Vulgate gives this verse a singular turn: Dedit ei Deus locum paenitentiae, et ille abutitur eo in superbiam, "God gave him space for repentance, but he has abused it through pride." This is by no means conformable to the original. I think the words should be translated thus: "He gives them (i.e., the guards) to him for security, and he leans upon them; yet his eyes are upon their ways." Though he have taken the guards, mentioned in the preceding verse, for his personal defense, and for this purpose he uses them; yet he is full of diffidence, and he is continually watching them lest they should be plotting his destruction. The true picture of an Eastern tyrant. Without are fightings; within are fears. Verse 24 They are exalted for a little while - Such tyrants are exalted for a time, for God putteth down one and raiseth up another; but he turns his hand against them, and they are gone. They are removed by his justice as all of the same character have been and shall be; time and judgment shall mow them down as the grass, and crop them off as the ears of ripe corn. They may flourish for a time, and continue their oppressions; but they shall at last come to an untimely end. Few tyrants ever visit the eternal world sicca morte, but by a violent death. All Eastern history is full of this great fact. Verse 25 And if it be not so now - Job has proved by examples that the righteous are often oppressed; that the wicked often triumph over the just, that the impious are always wretched even in the midst of their greatest prosperity; and he defies his friends to show one flaw in his argument, or an error in his illustration of it; and that existing facts are farther proofs of what he has advanced. In the preceding chapters we find Job's friends having continual recourse to this assertion, which it is the grand object of all their discourses to prove, viz., The righteous are so distinguished in the approbation of God, that they live always in prosperity, and die in peace. On the other hand, Job contends that the dispensations of Providence are by no means thus equal in this life; that experience shows that the righteous are often in adversity, and the wicked in power and prosperity. Job's friends had also endeavored to prove that if a reported good man fell into adversity, it was a proof that his character had been mistaken, that he was an internal sinner and hypocrite; and that God, by these manifest proofs of his disapprobation, unmasked him. Hence they charged Job with hypocrisy and secret sins, because he was now suffering adversity, and that his sins must be of the most heinous nature, because his afflictions were uncommonly great. This Job repels by appeals to numerous facts where there was nothing equivocal in the character; where the bad was demonstrably bad, and yet in prosperity; and the good demonstrably good, and yet in adversity. It is strange that none of these could hit on a middle way: viz., The wicked may be in prosperity, but he is ever miserable in his soul: the righteous may be in adversity, but he is ever happy in his God. In these respects, God's ways are always equal. On Job 24:14 , I have referred to the case of unfortunate men who, falling into adversity, madly have recourse to plunder to restore their ruined circumstances. The following anecdote is told of the justly celebrated Dr. Sharp, archbishop of York, the grandfather of that highly benevolent, useful, learned, and eminent man, Granville Sharp, Esq., with whom I had for several years the honor of a personal acquaintance. "Never was any man, as well by the tenderness of his nature as by the impulse of religion, better disposed to succor the distressed, and relieve the necessities of the poor; to which merciful offices he had so strong an inclination that no reasonable solicitations were ever in danger of meeting with a repulse. Nay, he was more prone to seek out proper objects of his bounty, than to reject them when recommended; and so far was his charity from any suspicion of being extorted by importunity, that it appeared rather a delight than uneasiness to him to extend his liberality upon all proper occasions." For the same reason, a singular anecdote of the archbishop, related in the London Chronicle of Aug. 13, 1785, and always credited by his family, may be thought worth preserving. "It was his lordship's custom to have a saddle-horse attend his carriage, that in case of fatigue from sitting, he might take the refreshment of a ride. As he was thus going to his episcopal residence, and was got a mile or two before his carriage, a decent, well-looking young man came up with him; and, with a trembling hand and a faltering tongue presented a pistol to his lordship's breast, and demanded his money. The archbishop, with great composure, turned about; and, looking steadfastly at him, desired he would remove that dangerous weapon, and tell him fairly his condition. 'Sir! sir!' with great agitation, cried the youth; 'no words, 'tis not a time; your money instantly.' 'Hear me, young man,' said the archbishop; 'you see I am an old man, and my life is of very little consequence: yours seems far otherwise. I am named Sharp, and am archbishop of York; my carriage and servants are behind. Tell me what money you want, and who you are, and I will not injure you, but prove a friend. Here, take this; and now ingenuously tell me how much you want to make you independent of so destructive a business as you are now engaged in.' 'O sir,' replied the man, 'I detest the business as much as you. I am-but-but-at home there are creditors who will not stay - fifty pounds, my lord, indeed would do what no tongue besides my own can tell.' 'Well, sir, I take it on your word; and, upon my honor, if you will, in a day or two, call on me at - , what I have now given you shall be made up that sum.' The highwayman looked at him, was silent, and went off; and, at the time appointed, actually waited on the archbishop, and assured his lordship his words had left impressions which nothing could ever destroy. "Nothing more transpired for a year and a half or more; when one morning a person knocked at his grace's gate, and with peculiar earnestness desired to see him. The archbishop ordered the stranger to be brought in. He entered the room where his lordship was, but had scarce advanced a few steps before his countenance changed, his knees tottered, and he sank almost breathless on the floor. On recovering, he requested an audience in private. The apartment being cleared, 'My lord,' said he, 'you cannot have forgotten the circumstances at such a time and place; gratitude will never suffer them to be obliterated from my mind. In me, my lord, you now behold that once most wretched of mankind; but now, by your inexpressible humanity, rendered equal, perhaps superior, in happiness to millions. O, my lord!' tears for a while preventing his utterance, ''tis you, 'tis you that have saved me, body and soul; 'tis you that have saved a dear and much-loved wife, and a little brood of children, whom I tendered dearer than my life. Here are the fifty pounds; but never shall I find language to testify what I feel. Your God is your witness; your deed itself is your glory; and may heaven and all its blessings be your present and everlasting reward! I was the younger son of a wealthy man; your lordship knows him; his name was - My marriage alienated his affection; and my brother withdrew his love, and left me to sorrow and penury. A month since my brother died a bachelor and intestate. What was his, is become mine; and by your astonishing goodness, I am now at once the most penitent, the most grateful, and happiest of my species.'" See Prince Hoar's life of Granville Sharp, Esq., page 13. I have no doubt there have been several cases of a similar kind, when the first step in delinquency was urged by necessity; but few of such wretched adventurers have met with an Archhishop Sharp. An early and pious education is the only means under God to prevent such dangerous steps, which generally lead to the most fearful catastrophe. Teach a child, that whom God loveth he chasteneth. Teach him, that God suffers men to hunger, and be in want, that he may try them if they will be faithful, and do them good in their latter end. Teach him, that he who patiently and meekly bears providential afflictions, shall be relieved and exalted in due time. Teach him, that it is no sin to die in the most abject poverty and affliction, brought on in the course of Divine providence, but that any attempts to alter his condition by robbery, knavery, cozening, and fraud, will be distinguished with heavy curses from the Almighty, and necessarily end in perdition and ruin. A child thus educated is not likely to abandon himself to unlawful courses. Introduction Bildad, the Shuhite, in an irregular speech, shows that God's dominion is supreme, his armies innumerable, and his providence extended over all, Job 25:1-3 ; that man cannot be justified before God; that even the heavenly bodies cannot be reputed pure in his sight; much less man, who is naturally weak and sinful, Job 25:4-6 . Verse 1 Bildad the Shuhite - This is the last attack on Job; the others felt themselves foiled, though they had not humility enough to acknowledge it, but would not again return to the attack. Bildad has little to say, and that little is very little to the point. He makes a few assertions, particularly in reference to what Job had said in the commencement of the preceding chapter, of his desire to appear before God, and have his case tried by him, as he had the utmost confidence that his innocence should be fully proved. For this Bildad reprehends Job with arguments which had been brought forth often in this controversy, and as repeatedly confuted, Job 4:18 ; Job 15:14-16 . Verse 2 Dominion and fear are with him - God is an absolute sovereign; his fear is on all the hosts of heaven; and by his sovereignty he establishes and preserves order in the heavens, and among all the inhabitants of the eternal world: how canst thou, therefore, dare to appeal to him, or desire to appear before him? Verse 3 Is there any number of his armies? - He has troops innumerable; he can serve himself of all his creatures; every thing may be a means of help or destruction, according to his Divine will. When he purposes to save, none can destroy; and when he is determined to destroy, none can save. It is vain to trust in his creatures against himself. Upon whom doth not his light arise? - That is, his providence rules over all; he is universal Lord; he causes his sun to arise on the evil and the good, and sends his rain on the just and unjust. Verse 4 How then can man be justified? - Or, ונה umah, With what, shall a man be justified with God? Though this is no conclusion from Bildad's premises, yet the question is of the highest importance to man. Neither Bildad nor any of his fellows could answer it; the doctrine of redemption through the blood of the cross was then known only through types and shadows. We who live in the Gospel dispensation, can readily answer the question, With what shall miserable man (אנוש enosh) be justified with God? - Ans. By bringing forward, by faith, to the throne of t

3 They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow's ox for a pledge. 4 They turn the needy out of the way: the poor of the earth hide themselves together. 5 Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work; rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children. 6 They reap every one his corn in the field: and they gather the vintage of the wicked. 7 They cause the naked to lodge without clothing, that they have no covering in the cold. 8 They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter. 9 They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor. 10 They cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry; 11 Which make oil within their walls, and tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst. 12 Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out: yet God layeth not folly to them. Job's friends had been very positive in it that they should soon see the fall of wicked people, how much soever they might prosper for a while. By no means, says Job; though times are not hidden from the Almighty, yet those that know him do not presently see his day, v. 1 . 1. He takes it for granted that times are not hidden from the Almighty; past times are not hidden from his judgment ( Eccl. iii. 15 ), present times are not hidden from his providence ( Matt. x. 29 ), future times are not hidden from his prescience, Acts xv. 18 . God governs the world, and therefore we may be sure he takes cognizance of it. Bad times are not hidden from him, though the bad men that make the times bad say one to another, He has forsaken the earth, Ps. xciv. 6, 7 . Every man's times are in his hand, and under his eye, and therefore it is in his power to make the times of wicked men in this world miserable. He foresees the time of every man's death, and therefore, if wicked men die before they are punished for their wickedness, we cannot say, "They escaped him by surprise;" he foresaw it, nay, he ordered it. Before Job will enquire into the reasons of the prosperity of wicked men he asserts God's omniscience, as one prophet, in a similar case, asserts his righteousness ( Jer. xii. 1 ), another his holiness ( Hab. i. 13 ), another his goodness to his own people, Ps. lxxiii. 1 . General truths must be held fast, though we may find it difficult to reconcile them to particular events. 2. He yet asserts that those who know him (that is, wise and good people who are acquainted with him, and with whom his secret is) do not see his day, —the day of his judging for them; this was the thing he complained of in his own case ( ch. xxiii. 8 ), that he could not see God appearing on his behalf to plead his cause,—the day of his judging against open and notorious sinners, that is called his day, Ps. xxxvii. 13 . We believe that day will come, but we do not see it, because it is future, and its presages are secret. 3. Though this is a mystery of Providence, yet there is a reason for it, and we shall shortly know why the judgment is deferred; even the wisest, and those who know God best, do not yet see it. God will exercise their faith and patience, and excite their prayers for the coming of his kingdom, for which they are to cry day and night to him, Luke xviii. 7 . For the proof of this, that wicked people prosper, Job specifies two sorts of unrighteous ones, whom all the world saw thriving in their iniquity:— I. Tyrants, and those that do wrong under pretence of law and authority. It is a melancholy sight which has often been seen under the sun, wickedness in the place of judgment ( Eccl. iii. 16 ), the unregarded tears of the oppressed, while on the side of the oppressors there was power ( Eccl. iv. 1 ), the violent perverting of justice and judgment, Eccl. v. 8 . 1. They disseize their neighbours of their real estates, which came to them by descent from their ancestors. They remove the land-marks, under pretence that they were misplaced ( v. 2 ), and so they encroach upon their neighbours' rights and think they effectually secure that to their posterity which they have got wrongfully, by making that to be an evidence for them which should have been an evidence for the rightful owner. This was forbidden by the law of Moses ( Deut. xix. 14 ), under a curse, Deut. xxvii. 17 . Forging or destroying deeds is now a crime equivalent to this. 2. They dispossess them of their personal estates, under colour of justice. They violently take away flocks, pretending they are forfeited, and feed thereof; as the rich man took the poor man's ewe lamb, 2 Sam. xii. 4 . If a poor fatherless child has but an ass of his own to get a little money with, they find some colour or other to take it away, because the owner is not able to contest with them. It is all one if a widow has but an ox for what little husbandry she has; under pretence of distraining for some small debt, or arrears of rent, this ox shall be taken for a pledge, though perhaps it is the widow's all. God has taken it among the titles of his honour to be a Father of the fatherless and a judge of the widows; and therefore those will not be reckoned his friends that do not to their utmost protect and help them; but those he will certainly reckon with as his enemies that vex and oppress them. 3. They take all occasions to offer personal abuses to them, v. 4 . They will mislead them if they can when they meet them on the high-way, so that the poor and needy are forced to hide themselves from them, having no other way to secure themselves from them. They love in their hearts to banter people, and to make fools of them, and do them a mischief if they can, especially to triumph over poor people, whom they turn out of the way of getting relief, threaten to punish them as vagabonds, and so force them to abscond, and laugh at them when they have done. Some understand those barbarous actions ( v. 9, 10 ) to be done by those oppressors that pretend law for what they do: They pluck the fatherless from the breast; that is, having made poor infants fatherless, they make them motherless too; having taken away the father's life, they break the mother's heart, and so starve the children and leave them to perish. Pharaoh and Herod plucked children from the breast to the sword; and we read of children brought forth to the murderers, Hos. ix. 13 . Those are inhuman murderers indeed that can with so much pleasure suck innocent blood. They take a pledge of the poor, and so they rob the spital; nay, they take the poor themselves for a pledge (as some read it), and probably it was under this pretence that they plucked the fatherless from the breast, distraining them for slaves, as Neh. v. 5 . Cruelty to the poor is great wickedness and cries aloud for vengeance. Those who show no mercy to such as lie at their mercy shall themselves have judgment without mercy. Another instance of their barbarous treatment of those they have advantage against is that they take from them even their necessary food and raiment; they squeeze them so with their extortion that they cause them to go naked without clothing ( v. 10 ) and so catch their death. And if a poor hungry family has gleaned a sheaf of corn, to make a little cake of, that they may eat it and die, even that they take away from them, being well pleased to see them perish for want, while they themselves are fed to the full. 4. They are very oppressive to the labourers they employ in their service. They not only give them no wages, though the labourer is worthy of his hire (and this is a crying sin, Jam. v. 4 ), but they will not so much as give them meat and drink: Those that carry their sheaves are hungry; so some read it ( v. 10 ), and it agrees with v. 11 , that those who make oil within their walls, and with a great deal of toil labour at the wine-presses, yet suffer thirst, which was worse than muzzling the mouth of the ox that treads out the corn. Those masters forget that they have a Master in heaven who will not allow the necessary supports of life to their servants and labourers, not caring whether they can live by their labour or no. 5. It is not only among the poor country people, but in the cities also, that we see the tears of the oppressed ( v. 12 ): Men groan from out of the city, where the rich merchants and traders are as cruel with their poor debtors as the landlords in the country are with their poor tenants. In cities such cruel actions as these are more observed than in obscure corners of the country and the wronged have easier access to justice to right themselves; and yet the oppressors there fear neither the restraints of the law nor the just censures of their neighbours, but the oppressed groan and cry out like wounded men, and can no more ease and help themselves, for the oppressors are inexorable and deaf to their groans. II. He speaks of robbers, and those that do wrong by downright force, as the bands of the Sabeans and Chaldeans, which had lately plundered him. He does not mention them particularly, lest he should seem partial to his own cause, and to judge of men (as we are apt to do) by what they are to us; but among the Arabians, the children of the east (Job's country), there were those that lived by spoil and rapine, making incursions upon their neighbours, and robbing travellers. See how they are described here, and what mischief they do, v. 5-8 . 1. Their character is that they are as wild asses in the desert, untamed, untractable, unreasonable, Ishmael's character ( Gen. xvi. 12 ), fierce and furious, and under no restraint of law or government, Jer. ii. 23, 24 . They choose the deserts for their dwelling, that they may be lawless and unsociable, and that they may have opportunity of doing the more mischief. The desert is indeed the fittest place for such wild people, ch. xxxix. 6 . But no desert can set men out of the reach of God's eye and hand. 2. Their trade is to steal, and to make a prey of all about them. They have chosen it as their trade; it is their work, because there is more to be got by it, and it is got more easily, than by an honest calling. They follow it as their trade; they follow it closely; they go forth to it as their work, as man goes forth to his labour, Ps. civ. 23 . They are diligent and take pains at it: They rise betimes for a prey. If a traveller be out early, they will be out as soon to rob him. They live by it as a man lives by his trade: The wilderness (not the grounds there but the roads there) yieldeth food for them and for their children; they maintain themselves and their families by robbing on the high-way, and bless themselves in it without any remorse of compassion or conscience, and with as much security as if it were honestly got; as Ephraim, Hos. xii. 7, 8 . 3. See the mischief they do to the country. They not only rob travellers, but they make incursions upon their neighbours, and reap every one his corn in the field ( v. 6 ), that is, they enter upon other people's ground, cut their corn, and carry it away as freely as if it were their own. Even the wicked gather the vintage, and it is their wickedness; or, as we read it, They gather the vintage of the wicked, and so one wicked man is made a scourge to another. What the wicked got by extortion (which is their way of stealing) these robbers get from them in their way of stealing; thus oftentimes are the spoilers spoiled, Isa. xxxiii. 1 . 4. The misery of those that fall into their hands ( v. 7, 8 ): They cause the naked, whom they have stripped, not leaving them the clothes to their backs, to lodge, in the cold nights, without clothing, so that they are wet with the showers of the mountains, and, for want of a better shelter, embrace the rock, and are glad of a cave or den in it to preserve them from the injuries of the weather. Eliphaz had charged Job with such inhumanity as this, concluding that Providence would not thus have stripped him if he had not first stripped the naked of their clothing, ch. xxii. 6 . Job here tells him there were those that were really guilty of those crimes with which he was unjustly charged and yet prospered and had success in their villanies, the curse they laid themselves under working invisibly; and Job thinks it more just to argue as he did, from an open notorious course of wickedness inferring a secret and future punishment, than to argue as Eliphaz did, who from nothing but present trouble inferred a course of past secret iniquity. The impunity of these oppressors and spoilers is expressed in one word ( v. 12 ): Yet God layeth not folly to them, that is, he does not immediately prosecute them with his judgments for these crimes, nor make them examples, and so evince their folly to all the world. He that gets riches, and not by right, at his end shall be a fool, Jer. xvii. 11 . But while he prospers he passes for a wise man, and God lays not folly to him until he saith, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee, Luke xii. 20 . Present Impunity of Transgressors. ( b. c. 1520.) 13 They are of those that rebel against the light; they know not the ways thereof, nor abide in the paths thereof. 14 The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief. 15 The ey

Walls - Within the walls of the oppressors for their use. Suffer - Because they are not permitted to quench their thirst out of the wine which they make.