Job 24:5

Behold, [as] wild asses in the desert,.... The word "as" is a supplement, and may be omitted, and the words be interpreted literally of wild asses, as they are by Sephorno, whose proper place is in

Some remove the landmarks; they violently take away flocks, and feed thereof. Instances of the wicked doing the worst deeds with seeming impunity. Some - the wicked.

As wild asses; which are wild, and lawless, and unteachable, and fierce, and greedy of prey, or food, which they snatch out of the goods or labours of the husbandman; in all which they are fit emblems of these men. Or, these wild men; for so this word signifies, , as elsewhere wild asses. The particle as is not in the Hebrew. In the desert, which is the proper habitation of wild asses, . If this be understood of the wild men, he placeth them in the desert and wilderness, either because they by their spoils and violences have destroyed or driven away the people, as is intimated, , and thereby turned populous places into deserts; or because such places as have but few houses and inhabitants are most fit for their robberies. Go they; either, 1. The poor, whom they spoiled and drove away from their own former habitations into deserts, where they hid themselves, and wrought hard for a subsistence. Or rather, 2. The oppressors, who are more fitly compared to wild asses, and more truly said to seek for prey, than those poor oppressed persons mentioned , and of whom he speaks both in the foregoing and following verses. To their work, i.e. to spoil and rob, which is their constant work and trade. The wilderness yieldeth food for them; they are so diligent and industrious in that work, that they will fetch food for them and theirs even out of desert places, in which the owners can very hardly subsist. For their children, or servants; for the word signifies both children and servants, even the whole family.

Job 24:5 Behold, [as] wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work; rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness [yieldeth] food for them [and] for [their] children.Ver. 5. Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work] These barbarous and brutish oppressors, skilful to destroy, do live in this world as the wild ass doth in the wilderness, roving and rambling up and down for booty, Onagri inter feras sunt efferatissimi, neque unquam mansuescunt (Merc.), whereunto early in the morning they prepare and harness themselves, as if this were their trade and occupation whereby they must needs get their living. Hic labor, hoc opus, vel artificium eorum est, saith Lavater. As "man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening," Psalms 104:23, so do these greedy cormorants, these evening wolves (as Micah calleth them), these spoilers "that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds: when the morning is light they practise it, because it is in the power of their hands. And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away," &c., Micah 2:1-2. Job had suffered much by the Arabian spoilers, those wild asses, who continue their old trade to this day, catching and snatching, vivitur ex rapto; neither can they be repelled or restrained by reason of their multitudes and their incredible swiftness (Fabric. in descrip. peregr. Hierosol.). The wilderness yieldeth food, &c.] Their pillage is their tillage, their rapine their revenue, whereby they maintain themselves and theirs; as the wild ass picks out a living in the desert. But shall they thus escape by iniquity? Have they no other ways to work? no better mediums? Never think it. "In thine anger cast down the people, O God," Psalms 56:7. He will do it; for the words are prophetic as well as optative. "Treasures of wickedness profit nothing," Proverbs 10:2. Mammon of iniquity is the next odious name to the devil; and to the devil it will bring a man, 1 Timothy 6:9. English Hubertus, a covetous oppressor, is said to have made this will: I yield my goods to the king, my body to the grave, my soul to the devil. Pope Sylvester II is said to have given his soul to the devil for seven years’ enjoyment of the popedom. And for their children] We have a profane and false proverb, Happy is that child whose father goeth to the devil. O faithful drudge! said a graceless son once of such a father, who died and left him great store of ill gotten goods.

Verse 5. Rising betimes for a prey] The general sense here seems plain enough. There are some who live a lawless roaming life: make a predatory life their employment; for this purpose, frequent the wilderness, where they seize on and appropriate whatsoever they find, and by this method they and their families are supported. Mr. Good says: "The sense has never yet been understood by any commentator;" and hence he proposes a different division of the words, placing ערבה arabah, the desert or wilderness, in the first hemistich, thus: - "Rising early for the pillage of the wilderness; The bread of themselves and of their children." Others think that the words are spoken solely of the poor under the hand of oppression, who are driven away from their homes, and obliged to seek such support as the wilderness can afford. Such was originally the state of the Bedouins, and of the wandering Arab hordes in general: the oppression of the tyrannous governors obliged them to seek refuge in the deserts, where they still live in a roaming predatory life.

5–8. Job now directs his attention to a particular class of outcasts, giving a pathetic description of their flight from the abodes of men and their herding together like wild asses in the wilderness; their destitution, and the miseries they endure from cold and want, having only the rocks and caves to cover them, and only the roots and garbage of the desert to sustain them. The class of miserables here referred to are, no doubt, as Ewald first pointed out, the aboriginal races of the regions east of the Jordan, whose land and homes had been seized by more powerful tribes, and who had fled from the bitter oppressions to which they were subjected by their conquerors. Another detailed reference is made to them in ch. 30.

Behold, as wild asses in the desert - In regard to the wild ass, see the notes at Job 6:5.

Second strophe — Dispossessed of their homes, the poor are driven forth like wild animals into the desert, destitute, Job 24:5-8.5.