Job 24:14

24:13-17 See what care and pains wicked men take to compass their wicked designs; let it shame our negligence and slothfulness in doing good. See what pains those take, who make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts of it: pains to compass, and then to hide that which will end in death and hell at last. Less pains would mortify and crucify the flesh, and be life and heaven at last. Shame came in with sin, and everlasting shame is at the end of it. See the misery of sinners; they are exposed to continual frights: yet see their folly; they are afraid of coming under the eye of men, but have no dread of God's eye, which is always upon them: they are not afraid of doing things which they are afraid of being known to do.

The murderer rising with the light,.... The light of the morning, before the sun is risen, about the time the early traveller is set out on his journey, and men go to distant markets to buy and sell goods, and the poor labourer goes forth to his work; then is the time for one that is used to commit robbery and murder to rise from his bed, or from his lurking place, in a cave or a thicket, where he has lain all night, in order to meet with the above persons: and so killeth the poor and needy; takes away from them the little they have, whether money or provisions, and kills them because they have no more, and that they may not be evidence against him; it may be meant of the poor saints and people of God, whom the wicked slay out of hatred to them: and in the night is as a thief; kills privately, secretly, at an unawares, as the thief does his work; or the "as" here is not a note of similitude or likeness, but of reality and truth; and so Mr. Broughton renders the words, "and in the night he will be as a thief"; in the morning he is a robber on the highway, and a murderer; all the day he is in his lurking place, in some haunt or another, sleeping or carousing; and when the night comes on, then he acts the part of a thief; in the morning he not only robs, but murders, that he may not be detected; at night he only steals, and not kills, because men are asleep, and see him not.

(14) With the light. —The mention of light as a moral essence suggests its physical analogue, so that by the contrast of the one with the violence done to the other, the moral turpitude of the wrong-doing is heightened. It seems impossible to interpret the light in the former case ( Job 24:13 ) otherwise than morally, and if so, the mention of the “ways thereof” and the “paths thereof” is very remarkable. The order in which these crimes of murder, adultery, and theft are mentioned according, as it does, with that in the Decalogue, is, at all events, suggestive of acquaintance with it.

Job 24:14-15 . The murderer rising with the light — As soon as the light appears, using no less diligence in his wicked practices than labourers do in their honest and daily employments; killeth the poor and needy — Where he finds nothing to satisfy his covetousness, he exerciseth his cruelty. And in the night is as a thief — He is really a thief; the particle as being often used to express, not the resemblance, but the truth, of the thing. In the night they rob men secretly and cunningly, as in the day-time they do it more openly and avowedly. The adulterer waiteth for the twilight — Namely, for the evening twilight, which is his opportunity; saying — In his heart; No eye shall see me — Comforting himself with the thoughts of secrecy and impunity; and disguiseth his face — Hebrew, putteth his face in secret; covers it with a mask that he may not be discovered.

Verse 14. - The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy . The murderer rises at the first glimpse of dawn - the time when mast men sleep most soundly. He cannot go about his wicked business in complete darkness. He has not the courage to attack the great and powerful, who might be well armed and have retainers to defend them, but enters the houses of a comparatively poor class, in which he is less afraid to risk himself. Here, in the night he is as a thief. He has not come into the house simply for murder. Theft is his main object. He will not take life unless he is resisted or discovered, and so, in a certain sense, driven to it. Job 24:14

14. with the light—at early dawn, while still dark, when the traveller in the East usually sets out, and the poor laborer to his work; the murderous robber lies in wait then (Ps 10:8). is as a thief—Thieves in the East steal while men sleep at night; robbers murder at early dawn. The same man who steals at night, when light dawns not only robs, but murders to escape detection.

With the light; as soon as the light appears, using no less diligence in his wicked practices, than labourers do in their honest and daily employments. Killeth the poor and needy; where he finds nothing to satisfy his covetousness, he exerciseth his cruelty. Is as a thief, i.e. he is really a thief; the particle as being oft used to express, not the resemblance but the truth of the thing, as Numbers 11:1 Deu 9:10 Hosea 4:4 Hosea 5:10 John 1:14 . In the night they rob men secretly and cunningly, as in the day-time they do it more openly and avowedly.

The murderer - One of the instances, referred to in the previous verse, of those who perform their deeds in darkness. Rising with the light - Hebrew לאור lā'ôr. Vulgate "Mane primo - in the earliest twilight." The meaning is, that he does it very early; by daybreak. It is not in open day, but at the earliest dawn. Killeth the poor and needy - Those who are so poor and needy that they are obliged to rise early and go forth to their toil. There is a double aggravation - the crime of murder itself, and the fact that it is committed on those who are under a necessity of going forth at that early hour to their labor. And in the night is as a thief - The same man. Theft is usually committed under cover of the night. The idea of Job is, that though these crimes cannot escape the notice of God, yet that he does not interpose to punish those who committed them. A striking incidental illustration of the fact stated here, occurred in the journey of Messrs. Robinson and Smith, on their way from Akabah to Jerusalem. After retiring to rest one night, they were aroused by a sudden noise; and they apprehended attack by robbers. "Our Arabs," says Dr. R. "were evidently alarmed. They said, if thieves, "they would steal upon us at midnight; if robbers they would come down upon towards morning." Bibl. Research. i. 270. It would seem, therefore, that there was some settled time or order in which they are accustomed to commit their various depredations.

13 Others are those that rebel against the light, They will know nothing of its ways, And abide not in its paths. 14 The murderer riseth up at dawn, He slayeth the sufferer and the poor, And in the night he acteth like a thief. 15 And the eye of the adulterer watcheth for the twilight; He thinks: "no eye shall recognise me," And he putteth a veil before his face. With המּה begins a new turn in the description of the moral confusion which has escaped God's observation; it is to be translated neither as retrospective, "since they" (Ewald), nor as distinctive, "they even" (Bttch.), i.e., the powerful in distinction from the oppressed, but "those" (for המה corresponds to our use of "those," אלּה to "these"), by which Job passes on to another class of evil-disposed and wicked men. Their general characteristic is, that they shun the light. Those who are described in Job 24:14 are described according to their general characteristic in Job 24:13; accordingly it is not to be interpreted: those belong to the enemies of the light, but: those are, according to their very nature, enemies of the light. The Beth is the so-called Beth essent.; היוּ (comp.

Proverbs 3:26) affirms what they are become by their own inclination, or as what they are fashioned, viz., as ἀποστάται φωτός (Symm.); מרד (on the root מר, vid., on Job 23:2) signifies properly to push one's self against anything, to lean upon, to rebel; מרד therefore signifies one who strives against another, one who is obstinate (like the Arabic mârid, merı̂d, comp. mumâri, not conformable to the will of another). The improvement מרדי אור (not with Makkeph, but with Mahpach of mercha mahpach. placed between the two words, vid., Br's Psalterium, p. x.) assumes the possibility of the construction with the acc., which occurs at least once, Joshua 22:19. They are hostile to the light, they have no familiarity with its ways (הכּיר, as Joshua 22:17, Psalm 142:5; Ruth 2:19, to take knowledge of anything, to interest one's self in its favour), and do not dwell (ישׁבוּ, Jer. reversi sunt, according to the false reading ישׁבוּ) in its paths, i.e., they neither make nor feel themselves at home there, they have no peace therein. The light is the light of day, which, however, stands in deeper, closer relation to the higher light, for the vicious man hateth τὸ φῶς, John 3:20, in every sense; and the works which are concealed in the darkness of the night are also ἔργα τοῦ σκότους, Romans 13:12 (comp. Isaiah 29:15), in the sense in which light and darkness are two opposite principles of the spiritual world.