World English Bible
- “Why aren’t times laid up by the Almighty? Why don’t those who know him see his days?
- There are people who remove the landmarks. They violently take away flocks, and feed them.
- They drive away the donkey of the fatherless, and they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.
- They turn the needy out of the way. The poor of the earth all hide themselves.
- Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, they go out to their work, seeking diligently for food. The wilderness yields them bread for their children.
- They cut their food in the field. They glean the vineyard of the wicked.
- They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold.
- They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter.
- There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor,
- so that they go around naked without clothing. Being hungry, they carry the sheaves.
- They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst.
- From out of the populous city, men groan. The soul of the wounded cries out, yet God doesn’t regard the folly.
- “These are of those who rebel against the light. They don’t know its ways, nor stay in its paths.
- The murderer rises with the light. He kills the poor and needy. In the night he is like a thief.
- The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me.’ He disguises his face.
- In the dark they dig through houses. They shut themselves up in the daytime. They don’t know the light.
- For the morning is to all of them like thick darkness, for they know the terrors of the thick darkness.
- “They are foam on the surface of the waters. Their portion is cursed in the earth. They don’t turn into the way of the vineyards.
- Drought and heat consume the snow waters, so does Sheol those who have sinned.
- The womb will forget him. The worm will feed sweetly on him. He will be no more remembered. Unrighteousness will be broken as a tree.
- He devours the barren who don’t bear. He shows no kindness to the widow.
- Yet God preserves the mighty by his power. He rises up who has no assurance of life.
- God gives them security, and they rest in it. His eyes are on their ways.
- They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone. Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of the way as all others, and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain.
- If it isn’t so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?”
Job 24 — When Justice Misses Its Appointment
Yesterday we heard Job’s vow to find God in the dark (ch. 23). Today he steps out of the courtroom into the street. He asks a question that wounds history: “Why does the Almighty not set times for judgment? Why must those who know him look in vain for such days?” (New International Version, Job 24:1). The Hebrew hints that these “times” are supposed to be “stored up” (tzafan)—kept like treasure. Job’s ache is not only that evil happens, but that God’s calendar seems locked.
Then Job walks us through the evidence. Boundary stones are shifted—an ancient crime we now know from Mesopotamian kudurru-steles that carried curses for moving them; Torah agrees (Deuteronomy 19:14; 27:17). The donkey of the fatherless is seized; the widow’s ox taken as collateral—blows that in a clan-land economy meant starvation (cf. Deuteronomy 24:6, 10–13). The poor glean on mountain-scraps, “like wild donkeys” foraging (Job 24:5): not noble freedom, but forced ferality. And the most haunting image: they press oil “between the walls” and tread the winepress, yet thirst (Job 24:10–11). Archaeology has uncovered such presses—beam and screw between heavy stone walls at sites like Ekron—industrial beauty masking the misery of day laborers who make luxury they do not taste.
Then comes Job’s hardest sentence: the dying groan in the city, “yet God charges no one with wrongdoing” (New International Version, Job 24:12). The phrase “charges” renders yasim tiflah—literally, “he does not set the wrong.” Job dares to say it feels unreckoned. Astonishingly, Paul will take that scandal and show its place in the gospel: God “left the sins committed beforehand unpunished” to demonstrate his justice “at the present time” in Christ (Romans 3:25–26). Job names the wound of divine patience; the cross is where God bears that wound himself.
Job names the perpetrators “rebels against the light” (New International Version, Job 24:13). This is not merely nocturnal crime; it is creation reversed. Light in Genesis is God’s first gift of ordered goodness; to rebel against it is to attempt un-creation. John will say, “Light has come… but people loved darkness” (John 3:19). Note the irony: murderers rise at dawn—the hour when ancient courts sat at the city gate—turning justice’s hour into prey-time. The adulterer says, “No eye will see me,” and covers his face; Gregory the Great warned that religion itself can become a mask for night-deeds. Ephesians 5 tells the church not only to avoid such works but to expose them—bring them into the light where Christ shines.
Verses 18–24 are famously knotted. Some hear Job quoting his friends’ tidy doctrine of swift retribution only to reject it with his closing challenge (24:25). Either way, Job refuses the comforting lie that judgment is predictable on our clocks. The wicked do flourish “for a little,” then fall—but not on a schedule we control.
Practice for the church: - Become guardians of “boundary stones”—in property, wages, and policy. James 5:4 says withheld pay cries to the Lord; learn to hear those cries. - Keep “times” of justice even when God’s time feels delayed: set rhythms of mercy, advocacy, and shared table. At the Supper we proclaim his death “until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). Let those who crush the grapes drink the wine with us. Remember the Crucified who said, “I thirst.”
Suggested cross-references: Psalm 73; Ecclesiastes 8:11; Habakkuk 1:2–4; Luke 18:1–8; John 3:19–21; Ephesians 5:8–14; Romans 3:21–26; James 5:1–6.
Word/phrase note: “Stored-up times” (tzafun, Job 24:1) evokes treasure kept in a chest; Job longs for a posted court date. “Rebels against the light” (mar’dei-or) is a rare moral metaphor: sin as resistance to creation’s first gift.
Hymn suggestion: “Let Justice Flow Like Streams” (Ruth Duck).
Prayer Patient and holy God, your light exposes and heals. We confess our complicity in moved boundaries and thirsty labor. Teach us to keep your times by doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly. Hear the groans of the city, and hasten the day when righteousness and peace kiss. Until then, seat us at your table with the poor, and make our lives a lamp. Through Jesus, Light of the world. Amen.