Job 24:7

24:1-12 Job discourses further about the prosperity of the wicked. That many live at ease who are ungodly and profane, he had showed, ch. xxi. Here he shows that many who live in open defiance of all the laws of justice, succeed in wicked practices; and we do not see them reckoned with in this world. He notices those that do wrong under pretence of law and authority; and robbers, those that do wrong by force. He says, God layeth not folly to them; that is, he does not at once send his judgments, nor make them examples, and so manifest their folly to all the world. But he that gets riches, and not by right, at his end shall be a fool, Jer 17:11.

They cause the naked to lodge without clothing,.... That is, such as are poorly clothed, thinly arrayed, have scarce anything but rags, and yet so cruel the wicked men above described, that they take these away from the poor, and even their bed clothes, which seem chiefly designed; so that they are obliged to lodge or lie all night without anything upon them: that they have no covering in the cold; neither in the daytime, nor in the night, and especially the latter; and having no house to go to, and obliged to lay themselves down upon the bare ground, had nothing to cover them from the inclemency of the weather; for even in hot countries nights are sometimes cold, and large dews fall, yea, sometimes it is a frost, see Genesis 31:40.

Job 24:7 . They cause the naked — That is, those whom they have made naked, whom they have stripped of their garments and coverings; so far were they from exercising charity or even justice toward them; to lodge without clothing — To sleep in the night without bed-clothes to cover them; that they have no covering in the cold — Of the night, in the winter season. This verse perhaps would be better rendered thus, They cause men to lodge naked, because they have no clothing, (that is, because they leave them nothing wherewith they can clothe themselves,) and no covering in the cold; they leave them neither raiment to wear in the day, nor a covering in the night.

Verse 7. - They cause the naked to lodge without clothing ; rather, they lie all night naked , without clothing. The marauders are still the subject of the narrative. When engaged in their raids, they endure to pass the night without clothing, as the Bedouins are said to do to this day, so that they have no covering in the cold. They are so bent upon plunder that they do not mind these inconveniences. Job 24:7

7. Umbreit understands it of the Bedouin robbers, who are quite regardless of the comforts of life, "They pass the night naked, and uncovered," &c. But the allusion to Job 22:6, makes the English Version preferable (see on [518]Job 24:10). Frost is not uncommon at night in those regions (Ge 31:40).

The naked, i.e. those whom they have made naked, whom they stripped of their garments and coverings; so far were they from exercising justice or charity towards them. To lodge; to sleep in the night, which is the coldest season. Without clothing; without bed-clothes to cover them: compare Deu 24:13 . In the cold of the night of the winter season. This verse is and may fitly be rendered thus, They cause men to lodge naked, because they have no clothing , (i.e. because they leave them nothing wherewith they can clothe themselves,) and no covering in the cold; they leave them neither raiment to wear in the day, nor a covering for the night.

They cause the naked to lodge without clothing - They strip others of their clothing, and leave them destitute. That they have no covering in the cold - All travelers tell us, that though the day is intensely hot in the deserts of Arabia, yet the nights are often intensely cold. Hence, the sufferings of those who are plundered, and who have nothing to defend themselves from the cold air of the night.

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 Psalm 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 Psalm 104:23, expresses himself, exchanging ב for ל). משׁחרי לטּרף, searching after prey, i.e., to satisfy their hunger (Psalm 104:21), from טרף, in the primary signification decerpere (vid., Hupfeld on Psalm 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.