Job 24 · a question people ask
Parts of 24:18-24 sound like what the friends have said. Whose words are these?
By the book's headings, Job's. The last heading was "Then Job answered" (23:1), and the next is "Then Bildad the Shuhite answered" (25:1); nothing in chapter 24 names another speaker, and the WEB closes the quotation only after "who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?" (24:25). Some of these verses are close to the friends' words. "Their portion is cursed on the earth" (24:18) sits beside Zophar's "This is the portion of a wicked man from God" (20:29). "He will be no more remembered" (24:20) sits beside Bildad's "His memory will perish from the earth" (18:17). "They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone" (24:24) sits beside Zophar's "the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment" (20:5). Some are close to Job's own words. "The worm will feed sweetly on him" (24:20) sits beside "The worm covers them" (21:26), where worm is the same Hebrew word, and beside "The clods of the valley will be sweet to him" (21:33), whose sweet is the verb Strong's derives 24:20's feed sweetly from. "God gives them security, and they rest in it" (24:23) sits beside Job's "Their houses are safe from fear" (21:9); in the Hebrew of 24:22-23 the subject is he, and the WEB supplies God. The book doesn't say how 24:18-24 fits beside 24:1-12, where the wrongs go on and "God doesn’t regard the folly" (24:12). Readers take these verses in more than one way. These notes keep to the book's headings, which give every verse to Job, and don't decide how he means them.
The verses
“Then Job answered,”
“Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,”
“If it isn’t so now, who will prove me a liar, and make my speech worth nothing?””
““They are foam on the surface of the waters. Their portion is cursed on the earth. They don’t turn into the way of the vineyards.”