5 Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, They go forth to their work, seeking diligently for food; The wilderness yields them bread for their children.
"Who has set the wild donkey free? Or who has loosened the bonds of the swift donkey, Whose home I have made the wilderness, And the salt land his dwelling-place? He scorns the tumult of the city, Neither hears he the shouting of the driver.
Man goes forth to his work, To his labor until the evening.
By your sword will you live, and you will serve your brother. It will happen, when you will break loose, That you shall shake his yoke from off your neck."
Whose harvest the hungry eats up, And take it even out of the thorns; The snare gapes for their substance.
The murderer rises with the light. He kills the poor and needy. In the night he is like a thief.
For they don't sleep, unless they do evil. Their sleep is taken away, unless they make someone fall.
For they have made ready their heart like an oven, While they lie in wait. Their baker sleeps all the night. In the morning it burns as a flaming fire.
For they have gone up to Assyria, Like a wild donkey wandering alone. Ephraim has hired lovers for himself.
Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day.
They led Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the Praetorium. It was early, and they themselves didn't enter into the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 24
Commentary on Job 24 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 24
Job having by his complaints in the foregoing chapter given vent to his passion, and thereby gained some ease, breaks them off abruptly, and now applies himself to a further discussion of the doctrinal controversy between him and his friends concerning the prosperity of wicked people. That many live at ease who yet are ungodly and profane, and despise all the exercises of devotion, he had shown, ch. 21. Now here he goes further, and shows that many who are mischievous to mankind, and live in open defiance to all the laws of justice and common honesty, yet thrive and succeed in their unrighteous practices; and we do not see them reckoned with in this world. What he had said before (ch. 12:6), "The tabernacles of robbers prosper,' he here enlarges upon. He lays down his general proposition (v. 1), that the punishment of wicked people is not so visible and apparent as his friends supposed, and then proves it by an induction of particulars.
Job 24:1-12
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.
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:-
Job 24:13-17
These verses describe another sort of sinners who therefore go unpunished, because they go undiscovered. They rebel against the light, v. 13. Some understand it figuratively: they sin against the light of nature, the light of God's law, and that of their own consciences; they profess to know God, but they rebel against the knowledge they have of him, and will not be guided and governed, commanded and controlled, by it. Others understand it literally: they have the day-light and choose the night as the most advantageous season for their wickedness. Sinful works are therefore called works of darkness, because he that does evil hates the light (Jn. 3:20), knows not the ways thereof, that is, keeps out of the way of it, or, if he happen to be seen, abides not where he thinks he is known. So that he here describes the worst of sinners,-those that sin wilfully, and against the convictions of their own consciences, whereby they add rebellion to their sin,-those that sin deliberately, and with a great deal of plot and contrivance, using a thousand arts to conceal their villanies, fondly imagining that, if they can but hide them from the eye of men, they are safe, but forgetting that there is no darkness or shadow of death in which the workers of iniquity can hide themselves from God's eye, ch. 34:22. In this paragraph Job specifies three sorts of sinners that shun the light:-
Job 24:18-25
Job here, in the conclusion of his discourse,