Job 24:6

They reap every one his corn in the field: and they gather the vintage of the wicked.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) They reap every one his corn.—Or, probably, the corn, that is, of the wicked tyrant. While they reap his corn and cut his provender, they have to go without themselves.

Benson Commentary

Job 24:6. They reap every one his corn in the field — The words, every one, are not in the original, and ought not to have been inserted here, as they alter the sense. The clause would be better translated without them. They reap his corn in the field; that is, these plunderers make incursions, reap and take away the corn of the honest, industrious husbandman, which he had sown for the support of his family. They gather the vintage of the wicked — Or, rather, the vintage of wickedness; that is, they plunder the vineyards of the honest, just man, as well as his corn-fields.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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, Jer 17:11.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They reap every one his corn - Margin, "mingled corn," or "dredge." The word used here (בליל belı̂yl) denotes, properly, "meslin," mixed provender, made up of various kinds of grain, as of barley, vetches, etc., prepared for cattle; see the notes at Isaiah 30:24.

In the field - They break in upon the fields of others, and rob them of their grain, instead of cultivating the earth themselves. So it is rendered by Jerome - Agrum non suum deme-runt; et vineam ejus, quem vi. oppresserint vindemiant. The Septuagint renders it, "A field, not their own, they reap down before the time - πρὸ ὥρας pro hōras.

They gather the vintage of the wicked - Margin, "the wicked gather the vintage." Rather, they gather the vintage of the oppressor. It is not the vintage of honest industry; not a harvest which is the result of their own labor, but of plunder. They live by depredations on others. This is descriptive of those who support themselves by robbery.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. Like the wild asses (Job 24:5) they (these Bedouin robbers) reap (metaphorically) their various grain (so the Hebrew for "corn" means). The wild ass does not let man pile his mixed provender up in a stable (Isa 30:24); so these robbers find their food in the open air, at one time in the desert (Job 24:5), at another in the fields.

the vintage of the wicked—Hebrew, "the wicked gather the vintage"; the vintage of robbery, not of honest industry. If we translate "belonging to the wicked," then it will imply that the wicked alone have vineyards, the "pious poor" (Job 24:4) have none. "Gather" in Hebrew, is "gather late." As the first clause refers to the early harvest of corn, so the second to the vintage late in autumn.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

They; either,

1. The poor, who are forced to gather in the corn and grapes of their wicked oppressors; or rather,

2. The oppressors, of whom he speaks Job 4:4,5,7.

His corn, i.e. the corn of the wicked, as it is in the next clause. Or, that which

is not their own; as the LXX., and Chaldee, and Vulgar Latin translate it, reading the Hebrew as two distinct words: they reap other men’s labours.

In the field, i.e. in the field of the right owner, from whom they take it. He notes their great power and boldness, that they did not come suddenly, and carry away their corn when it was laid up in the barns, or in heaps; but they proceeded leisurely, and staid to reap the corn, and by degrees carried it away, as it were in triumph, not fearing any interruption or hinderance either from God or man.

The vintage of the wicked; of such as themselves: so they promiscuously robbed all, even their own brethren in iniquity; whereby also he may intimate the righteous judgment of God in punishing one wicked man by another, and in depriving men of those goods which they had wickedly gotten. Or, the wicked (the singular number being used collectively for the plural, as is frequent; the oppressors)

gather the vintage, to wit, belonging to other men.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

They reap everyone his corn in the field,.... Not the poor, who are obliged to reap the corn of the wicked for them without any wages, as some; but rather the wicked reap the corn of the poor; they are so insolent and impudent, that they do not take the corn out of their barns by stealth, but while it is standing in the field; they come openly and reap it down, as if it was their own, without any fear of God or men: it is observed, that the word (k) signifies a mixture of the poorer sorts of corn, which is scarce anything better than food for cattle; yet this they cut down and carry off, as forage for their horses and asses at least. Some of the ancient versions, taking it to be two words, render them, "which is not their own" (l); they go into a field that is not theirs, and reap corn that do not belong to them, that they have no right unto, and so are guilty of great injustice, and of doing injury to others:

and they gather the vintage of the wicked; gather the grapes off of the vines of wicked men, which are gathered, as the word signifies, at the latter end of the year, in autumn; and though they belong to wicked men like themselves, yet they spare them not, but seize on all that come to hand, whether the property of good men or bad men; and thus sometimes one wicked man is an instrument of punishing another: or "the wicked gather the vintage" (m); that is, of the poor; as they reap where they have not sown, they gather of that they have not planted.

(k) "migma suum", Bolducius; "farraginem ejus vel suam", Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius, Michaelis. (l) Sept. "non suum", V. L. so the Targum, and Aben Ezra, Grotius, Codurcus. (m) "et in vinea (aliena) vindemiant impii", Tigurine version; "vineasque vindemiant impii", Castalio.

Geneva Study Bible

They reap every one {f} his corn in the field: and they gather the {g} vintage of the wicked.

(f) Meaning the poor man's.

(g) Signifying that one wicked man will not spoil another, but for necessity.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. The verse reads,

They reap their fodder in the field,

And glean the vineyard of the wicked.

The coarse food which they can possess themselves of is called by the poet “their fodder”; it is scarcely grain; and for fruit they have only the forgotten or neglected late gleanings of the vineyard of the wicked. The term “wicked” seems to mean here the rich, inhumane lords of the soil; comp. the converse use of “rich” for “wicked,” Isaiah 53:9.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - They reap every one his corn in the field. When they have scoured the desert, the marauders approach the cultivated ground bordering on it, and thence carry off, each of them. a quantity of "fodder," or "provender" (Revised Version), for the sustentation of their horses. And they gather the vintage of the wicked; rather, as in the margin, and the wicked gather the vintage. (So Rosenmuller and Professor Lee.) Sometimes they burst into the vineyards, and rob them, carrying off the ripe grapes. Job 24:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

5 Behold, as wild asses in the desert,

They go forth in their work seeking for prey,

The steppe is food to them for the children.

6 In the field they reap the fodder for his cattle,

And they glean the vineyard of the evil-doer.

7 They pass the night in nakedness without a garment,

And have no covering in the cold.

8 They are wet with the torrents of rain upon the mountains,

And they hug the rocks for want of shelter.

The poet could only draw such a picture as this, after having himself seen the home of his hero, and the calamitous fate of such as were driven forth from their original abodes to live a vagrant, poverty-stricken gipsy life. By Job 24:5, one is reminded of Psalm 104:21-23, especially since in Job 24:11 of this Psalm the פּראים, onagri (Kulans), are mentioned, - those beautiful animals

(Note: Layard, New Discoveries, p. 270, describes these wild asses' colts. The Arabic name is like the Hebrew, el-ferâ, or also himâr el-wahsh, i.e., wild ass, as we have translated, whose home is on the steppe. For fuller particulars, vid., Wetzstein's note on Job 39:5.)

which, while young, as difficult to be broken in, and when grown up are difficult to be caught; which in their love of freedom are an image of the Beduin, Genesis 16:12; their untractableness an image of that which cannot be bound, Job 11:12; and from their roaming about in herds in waste regions, are here an image of a gregarious, vagrant, and freebooter kind of life. The old expositors, as also Rosenm., Umbr., Arnh., and Vaih., are mistaken in thinking that aliud hominum sceleratorum genus is described in Job 24:5. Ewald and Hirz. were the first to perceive that Job 24:5 is the further development of Job 24:4, and that here, as in Job 30:1, those who are driven back into the wastes and caves, and a remnant of the ejected and oppressed aborigines who drag out a miserable existence, are described.

The accentuation rightly connects פראים במדבר; by the omission of the Caph similit., as e.g., Isaiah 51:12, the comparison (like a wild ass) becomes an equalization (as a wild ass). The perf. יצאוּ is a general uncoloured expression of that which is usual: they go forth בפעלם, in their work (not: to their work, as the Psalmist, in Psalm 104:23, expresses himself, exchanging ב for ל). משׁחרי לטּרף, searching after prey, i.e., to satisfy their hunger (Psalm 104:21), from טרף, in the primary signification decerpere (vid., Hupfeld on Psalm 7:3), describes that which in general forms their daily occupation as they roam about; the constructivus is used here, without any proper genitive relation, as a form of connection, according to Ges. 116, 1. The idea of waylaying is not to be connected with the expression. Job describes those who are perishing in want and misery, not so much as those who themselves are guilty of evil practices, as those who have been brought down to poverty by the wrongdoing of others. As is implied in משׁחרי (comp. the morning Psalm 63:2; Isaiah 26:9), Job describes their going forth in the early morning; the children (נערים, as Job 1:19; Job 29:5) are those who first feel the pangs of hunger. לו refers individually to the father in the company: the steppe (with its scant supply of roots and herbs) is to him food for the children; he snatches it from it, it must furnish it for him. The idea is not: for himself and his family (Hirz., Hahn, and others); for v. 6, which has been much misunderstood, describes how they, particularly the adults, obtain their necessary subsistence. There is no MS authority for reading בּלי־לו instead of בּלילו; the translation "what is not to him" (lxx, Targ., and partially also the Syriac version) is therefore to be rejected. Raschi correctly interprets יבולו as a general explanation, and Ralbag תבואתו: it is, as in Job 6:5, mixed fodder for cattle, farrago, consisting of oats or barley sown among vetches and beans, that is intended. The meaning is not, however, as most expositors explain it, that they seek to satisfy their hunger with food for cattle grown in the fields of the rich evil-doer; for קצר does not signify to sweep together, but to reap in an orderly manner; and if they meant to steal, why did they not seize the better portion of the produce? It is correct to take the suff. as referring to the רשׁע which is mentioned in the next clause, but it is not to be understood that they plunder his fields per nefas; on the contrary, that he hires them to cut the fodder for his cattle, but does not like to entrust the reaping of the better kinds of corn to them. It is impracticable to press the Hiph. יקצירו of the Chethib to favour this rendering; on the contrary, הקציר stands to קצר in like (not causative) signification as הנחה to נחה (vid., on Job 31:18). In like manner, Job 24:6 is to be understood of hired labour. The rich man prudently hesitates to employ these poor people as vintagers; but he makes use of their labour (whilst his own men are fully employed at the wine-vats) to gather the straggling grapes which ripen late, and were therefore left at the vintage season. the older expositors are reminded of לקשׁ, late hay, and explain ילקּשׁוּ as denom. by יכרתו לקשׁו (Aben-Ezra, Immanuel, and others) or יאכלו לקשׁו (Parchon); but how unnatural to think of the second mowing, or even of eating the after-growth of grass, where the vineyard is the subject referred to! On the contrary, לקּשׁ signifies, as it were, serotinare, i.e., serotinos fructus colligere (Rosenm.):

(Note: In the idiom of Hauran, לקשׂ, fut. i, signifies to be late, to come late; in Piel, to delay, e.g., the evening meal, return, etc.; in Hithpa. telaqqas, to arrive too late. Hence laqı̂s לקישׂ and loqsı̂ לקשׂי, delayed, of any matter, e.g., לקישׁ and זרע לקשׂי, late seed ( equals לקשׁ, Amos 7:1, in connection with which the late rain in April, which often fails, is reckoned on), ולד לקשׂי, a child born late (i.e., in old age); bakı̂r בכיר and bekrı̂ בכרי are the opposites in every signification. - Wetzst.)

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