Job 24:12 Commentary and Bible Study

Further injustices are identified by Job. Not only in the countryside where there is a simpler way of life and poverty is more likely to prevail, but also in the cities where there are far more opportunities to be prosperous; there too the rich have life sown up for themselves. Far from letting their riches trickle down to the lower levels of society, they put in place a sieve that retains everything for themselves and lets nothing reach others. Therefore the dying poor groan in the city for want of food, of care, of compassion. The souls of the wounded cry out even if their voices are too weak to do so. Their very condition is a powerful cry to anyone who has a heart to hear. Then comes the conclusion that Job had been leading up to: God seems to take no notice of any of this and does nothing about it. He does not correct such injustices, but lets those who dwell in the earth go on and on in their evil ways even when the results are the death of those they should have succoured and protected. This is no game, no theatre which comes to and end and then each player puts aside his costume and returns to the normality of mercy. This is reality and the three comforters cannot deny it. It is these arguments that eventually reduce them to silence, as they have no substantial to answer to give to Job. God so often does not charge the wicked with wrong in this life; this is the only conclusion that the man of sight can draw. They get away with it to the point where they leave the world and are lost to sight, and yet up till then there is no visible difference is seen between them and the righteous.There they are, those who rebel against light, as large as life on God’s earth. Light has come into the world, for God has spoken into the world; he has even come personally into the world, and yet they want nothing to do with the light. The light is their enemy for they know enough their shame and guilt if they think about light. They have no love for the truth; they have chosen the paths of darkness and to walk these they need no light other than that which they manufacture for themselves. There is such a thing as truth and they know it, but they do not want to learn about it or familiarise themselves with it for that will render them even more without excuse. For this reason they are said to have rebelled against the light, because though they should live by it, they have deliberately rejected a life of obedience to God in favour of a life spent gratifying their lusts and indulging their sinful appetites. They are not familiar with the paths of righteousness because although they have come across them, they quickly turn aside if ever they find themselves going that way. There is nothing to hold them in such paths. They do not possess the fear of the Lord that might make them afraid to leave such safe paths. They have already agreed to pay the cost of their lusts: the forfeiture of their eternal souls and it is therefore an easy matter to step aside from those paths at any time.