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,
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 6, 8, 9 And for cruelty and oppression dare not show their…
And for cruelty and oppression dare not show their faces.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv3–9 Job 24:3 They drive away the ass of the…
Job 24:3 They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.
Ver. 3. They drive away the ass of the fatherless] The only ass of orphans, those helpless, shiftless creatures, so merciless are these abigei, which is no small aggravation of their injustice. {see 2Sa 12:3} For all sins are not equal, as the Stoics once held, but lighter or heavier according to their circumstances. To rob the rich is a great offence, but to pillage the poor is far greater.
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They take the widow’s ox for a pledge] Without which she cannot plough; or, her cow, as some render it, without which she and her children cannot live. A poor body’s livelihood is his life (as that poor widow’s was ολον τον βιον, Mar 12:44, and the like is said of the haemorrhoisse, Luk 8:43), crush this snail in his shell, and you kill him. Now therefore albeit it be not unlawful to take a pledge for security in some cases; yet courtesy must be used, and mercy must be shown to orphans, widows, strangers, and such like, because they are God’s clients, and he hath taken them into his special care and tuition.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv3–9 The ass, either the asses, the singular number being…
The ass, either the asses, the singular number being used collectively. Or he saith the ass, to aggravate their sin, that they robbed him who had but one ass. Compare 1Sa 12:2-4.
The fatherless; whose helpless condition required their pity and mercy.
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The widow’s ox; thereby depriving her not only of the ox itself, but of all the benefit of its labours, by which she sustained her life.
For a pledge; contrary to God’s law, first written in men’s hearts, and afterwards in Holy Scripture, Exo 22:26,27; Deu 24:6,10, &c.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv3–9 They drive away the ass of the fatherless,.... Who…
They drive away the ass of the fatherless,.... Who are left destitute of friends, and have none to take care of them, and provide for them; and who having one ass to carry their goods for them from place to place, or to ride upon, which though a creature of no great worth, yet of some usefulness, this they drove away from its pasture, or however from its right owner; and who having but one, it was the more cruel and inhuman to take it from him, see, Sa2 12:3;
they take the widow's ox for a pledge; or oxen, the singular for the plural, with which her lands were ploughed, for a single ox could be but of little service: some render it "a cow" (h), by the milk of which she and her family were chiefly supported, as many poor country families are by the means of a good milch cow; and to take this, on which her livelihood depended, and retain for a pledge, was very barbarous; when the law concerning pledges took place among the Jews, in the times of Moses, which it seems was in being before with others, whatsoever was useful to persons, either to keep them warm, or by which they got their bread, were not to be taken, at least not detained for a pledge, see Exo 22:26.
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(h) "pro bove foemina, vacca", Bolducius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv3–9 Pledge - Contrary to God's law, first written in…
Pledge - Contrary to God's law, first written in mens hearts, and afterwards in holy scripture, Exod. xxii, 26, 27.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv4–9 Verse 4. They turn the needy out of the…
Verse 4. They turn the needy out of the way] They will not permit them to go by the accustomed paths; they oblige them to take circuitous routes. When the Marquis of H. was made ranger of Richmond Park, he thought it his duty to shut up a pathway which had existed for a long time; and those who presumed, after this shutting up, to break the fence, and take that path as formerly, were prosecuted. A cobbler near the place entered an action against the marquis: the cause was tried, the marquis cast, and the path ordered to be opened, on the ground that it had, time out of mind, been a public undisputed path. When one asked the cobbler, "How he could have the boldness to go to law with the Marquis of H.?" he answered, "Because I did not like to leave the world worse than I found it." All tolerated oppression and voluntary forfeiture of ancient rights, are injurious to society at large, and they who wink at them leave the world worse than they found it.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Job 24:3-4. They drive away the ass of the…
Job 24:3-4. They drive away the ass of the fatherless — Whose helpless condition required their pity and mercy. He says, the ass, to aggravate their sin, in that they robbed him who had but one ass. They take the widow’s ox — Thereby depriving her, not only of the ox itself, but of all the benefit of its labours, by which her life was sustained; for a pledge — Contrary to God’s law, first written in men’s hearts, and afterward in the Holy Scriptures, Exo 22:26. They turn the needy out of the way — Out of the way of piety and virtue. They engage them to take evil courses by their examples, or promises, or threatenings. Or, out of their right, of which they deprive them, by subtlety or power. Or, rather, as the word מדרךְ, middarech, more properly signifies, and as the next clause explains it, out of the highway, out of the path or place in which these oppressors walk and range. These needy persons labour to keep out of their way for fear of their further injuries and oppressions. The poor of the earth hide themselves, &c. — For fear of these wicked tyrants and persecutors.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv3–9 They drive away the ass of the fatherless -…
They drive away the ass of the fatherless - Of the orphan, who cannot protect himself, and whose only property may consist in this useful animal. Injury done to an orphan is always regarded as a crime of special magnitude, for they are unable to protect themselves; see the notes at Job 22:9.
They take the widow’s ox for a pledge - See the notes at Job 22:6. The widow was dependent on her ox to till the ground, and hence, the crime of taking it away in pledge for the payment of a debt.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv4–9 Poor, by oppression, not allowing them to get their…
Poor, by oppression, not allowing them to get their bread, or to walk on the same road. (Calmet) --- And have. Hebrew and Septuagint, "the meek....have hidden themselves together."
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv3–9 pledge--alluding to Job 22:6. Others really do, and with…
pledge--alluding to Job 22:6. Others really do, and with impunity, that which Eliphaz falsely charges the afflicted Job with.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv4–9 4. Out of the way — To which all…
4. Out of the way — To which all had equal rights. “Perhaps equivalent to our phrase, ‘kick out of the way.’” — Dillmann. The sense is, that the poor are forced to betake themselves to bypaths that they may escape overt acts of violence.
Hide themselves — Are made to hide themselves. They huddle together in cave or den, like wild beasts, from the fury of the storm.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv3–9 3. By “the ass” and “the ox” is meant…
3. By “the ass” and “the ox” is meant the single ass and ox which the fatherless and widow possess, needful for working their small field or affording them scanty nourishment. When deprived of these they are brought to complete destitution, and removed from the land.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv3, 6 (3) They drive away the ass.—The ass and the…
(3) They drive away the ass.—The ass and the ox, the fatherless and the widow presumably having no more than one. He first describes the oppression of the country, and then that of the city (Job_24:12). We seem here to catch a glimpse of the sufferings of some oppressed and subject aboriginal race, such as the Canaanites may have been to the Jews, though there is probably no allusion to them. But, at all events, the writer and the speaker seem to have been familiar with some such abject and servile race, who haunted the desert and suffered at the hands of the more powerful tribes. Man’s inhumanity to man is, unhappily, a crime of very long standing.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv3–9 They drive away the ass of the fatherless. This…
They drive away the ass of the fatherless. This was another form of oppression. "Whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed?" says Samuel, on laying down his judgeship. (1Sa_12:3) The "fatherless" were particularly liable to such ill treatment, seeing that they had lost their natural protector. They take the widow"s ox for a pledge. It may be true that this was nowhere a legal offence, not even among the Hebrews (Lee); but it was a real act of oppression, and forms a fitting counterpart to the injury done to the orphan. (On the natural tendency of selfish men to bear hard on these two classes, see Exo_22:22 Deu_24:17 Psa_94:6 Isa_1:23 Isa_10:2 Jer_5:28 Zec_7:10)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv5, 8 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Job continues speaking.
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these poor people go out to their work like wild donkeys in the wilderness, looking carefully for food
These poor people are spoken of as if they are wild donkeys who do not know where they will find food. AT: "these poor people go out to search for food as if they were wild donkeys in the wilderness" (See: Simile)
wild donkeys
"donkeys that no one owns or cares for"
Poor people reap in the night ... they glean grapes
These two lines describe the same thing and are used together to emphasize that these people are so hungry that they are forced to steal food at night. (See: Parallelism)
They lie naked ... they have no covering
These two lines describe the same thing and are used together to emphasize that these people do not have enough clothing to keep warm. (See: Parallelism)
translationWords
desert
Arabah
reap
glean
grape
harvest
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv3, 6, 7, 9 24:3 The law did not allow seizing necessary belongings…
24:3 The law did not allow seizing necessary belongings as security or collateral for a loan (22:6-9; Deut 24:6, 10-13, 17-21).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.