Job 24:2 Commentary and Bible Study

He provides a catalogue of distressing injustices in the earth, all of which bring grief to the minds of those who fear God and who long for the establishment of righteousness, but which are undeniable to anyone familiar with life. He lists these things not just because he is perplexed by them and personally affected by them, but because they are a complete refutation of the comforters who teach final justice in this life, as the basis to their insistence that Job is being punished for his own secret wickedness.Some remove landmarks. Job is thinking of markers: stones, pillars, walls and other objects that mark out where one property ends and another starts. The law explicitly forbade this removal: ‘Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it’ (Deuteronomy 19:14). ‘Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen’ (Deuteronomy 27:17). And Solomon says the same: ‘Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set’ (Proverbs 22:28); ‘Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless: ¹¹ For their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee’ (Proverbs 23:10-11). The wicked remove such landmarks as a way of illegally appropriating what does not belong to them. They may be in a position to know that if anyone contests what they have done, they can suppress any complaints by violence or corruption. So violence and theft become a useful tool to them by which they take possession of whatever they want. That this is what Job has in mind is clear from the connection with the idea of seizing not only the land but the livestock of others.They target those whom they know are very unlikely to be able to fight back and do anything to protect themselves. They care nothing about the suffering and anxiety they cause, for they think the whole world revolves around them, and all others are only there to serve their interests. So they take from the fatherless and from widows, both of whom are proverbially vulnerable. A child relies on its parents to care for its interests and protect it from harm. It does not have enough knowledge about the world to know when it is being abused or taken advantage of. A widow in the ancient world did not know about men’s schemes and how the corridors of power work, but relied on her husband to provide for her. When he is gone she must fend for herself in an alien world. But the evil man sees her vulnerable condition and instead of being moved by mercy, sees only a potential prey. Because there is no one to protect her, he will move in for the kill. He is incapable of feeling pity or any sense of responsibility to the needy.