Job 24
Job continues his response to Eliphaz, and again asks where God is, but this time in reference to God’s apparent lack of judgment upon the wicked. In Job 24:2-12, he describes ill treatment and oppression of the poor at the hand of the wicked, yet God charges no one with wrong. (v. 12) Then he describes various forms of evil behavior (Job 24:13-17), and he cites his friends’ argument that the wicked are swiftly brought down to Sheol. (Job 24:18-20) He then reasserts that God does not bring them down so swiftly, but instead prolongs their life and even seems to exalt them for a while (though they die in the end). (Job 24: 21-24) He ends with a final challenge to his friends: If it is not so, who will prove me a liar and show that there is nothing in what I say? (v. 24)
In Job’s descriptions of how the wicked abuse the poor and how the poor end up toiling for the wicked, I again wonder whether Job has his friends specifically in mind. Are his observations simply common examples drawn from the world at large? Or are they much closer, playing out right there in front of him, with his friends sitting in smug prosperity, seeming oblivious to their role in the oppression? I am, of course, just speculating about the behavior of Job’s friends. Job has not explicitly accused them of such things. Even so, I might note that, although the friends have likewise said that mistreatment of the poor is evil, the friends’ worldview would suggest that the poor deserve to be poor; that is, their poverty is simply God’s judgment on their sins, just as Job’s suffering is evidence of his sins. Hence, I doubt that they have much real sympathy for the poor… But Job does.