2 There are people out there getting by with murder - stealing and lying and cheating. 3 They rip off the poor and exploit the unfortunate, 4 Push the helpless into the ditch, bully the weak so that they fear for their lives. 5 The poor, like stray dogs and cats, scavenge for food in back alleys. 6 They sort through the garbage of the rich, eke out survival on handouts. 7 Homeless, they shiver through cold nights on the street; they've no place to lay their heads. 8 Exposed to the weather, wet and frozen, they huddle in makeshift shelters. 9 Nursing mothers have their babies snatched from them; the infants of the poor are kidnapped and sold. 10 They go about patched and threadbare; even the hard workers go hungry. 11 No matter how back-breaking their labor, they can never make ends meet. 12 People are dying right and left, groaning in torment. The wretched cry out for help and God does nothing, acts like nothing's wrong!
13 "Then there are those who avoid light at all costs, who scorn the light-filled path. 14 When the sun goes down, the murderer gets up - kills the poor and robs the defenseless. 15 Sexual predators can't wait for nightfall, thinking, 'No one can see us now.' 16 Burglars do their work at night, but keep well out of sight through the day. They want nothing to do with light. 17 Deep darkness is morning for that bunch; they make the terrors of darkness their companions in crime.
18 "They are scraps of wood floating on the water - useless, cursed junk, good for nothing. 19 As surely as snow melts under the hot, summer sun, sinners disappear in the grave. 20 The womb has forgotten them, worms have relished them - nothing that is evil lasts. 21 Unscrupulous, they prey on those less fortunate. 22 However much they strut and flex their muscles, there's nothing to them. They're hollow. 23 They may have an illusion of security, but God has his eye on them. 24 They may get their brief successes, but then it's over, nothing to show for it. Like yesterday's newspaper, they're used to wrap up the garbage.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 24:2-24
Commentary on Job 24:1-12
(Read Job 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, Jeremiah 17:11.
Commentary on Job 24:13-17
(Read Job 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.
Commentary on Job 24:18-25
(Read Job 24:18-25)
Sometimes how gradual is the decay, how quiet the departure of a wicked person, how is he honoured, and how soon are all his cruelties and oppressions forgotten! They are taken off with other men, as the harvestman gathers the ears of corn as they come to hand. There will often appear much to resemble the wrong view of Providence Job takes in this chapter. But we are taught by the word of inspiration, that these notions are formed in ignorance, from partial views. The providence of God, in the affairs of men, is in every thing a just and wise providence. Let us apply this whenever the Lord may try us. He cannot do wrong. The unequalled sorrows of the Son of God when on earth, unless looked at in this view, perplex the mind. But when we behold him, as the sinner's Surety, bearing the curse, we can explain why he should endure that wrath which was due to sin, that Divine justice might be satisfied, and his people saved.