“They wrong the barren, childless woman, and do no good to the widow.
Job 24 is Job's long look at a world where cruelty pays. His friends have accused him of hidden sin. He answers by pointing to real oppressors who go untouched. In verse 21 he names their two most defenceless victims.
The Words of the Verse
Another rendering of the verse sharpens the picture. The oppressor does not just neglect these two women. He consumes them:
William KellyHe devours the barren woman who bears no child, and does the widow no good.
Two People With No One to Stand Up for Them
Job picks his examples with care. A woman with no children and a woman with no husband share one thing. No family stands between them and a strong man who wants what they have. The second charge is not violence but withheld kindness: he does the widow no good. Elsewhere Scripture ties that very helplessness to God's own character:
C. H. MackintoshHe is high over all, the great, the mighty and the awesome One. But He has a heart for the widow and the fatherless. They are helpless people stripped of every earthly and natural support — the poor bereaved and broken-hearted widow, and the desolate orphan. God thinks of such people and cares for them in a very special way. They have a claim on His loving heart and mighty hand. "God in His holy habitation is a Father to the fatherless and a Judge for the widow."
The ESV of that psalm says "protector of widows." Either way, this is what makes Job's complaint bite. God claims these two as His own, and they are the ones being devoured.
Job's Case Against His Friends
The verse is not a general lament. It has a target. Eliphaz had argued that suffering is always the punishment of sin, so Job's ruin proved Job's guilt. Job answers by showing men whose guilt is obvious and whose lives are comfortable:
Samuel RidoutJob takes other cases to illustrate the same heartlessness. The wicked tear the fatherless from the breast; they defraud the poor. Why do his friends hint that he was guilty of such conduct, when obvious cases were plain to them?... How can Eliphaz make such facts fit in with his theory that evil is always punished in this life? But, oh, how can God close His eyes to these things, and afflict a faithful man instead of these wrongdoers? This is Job's great trouble, and for this he has found no solution.
The Call for Swift Judgment
Verse 21 closes Job's argument. Judgment ought to fall now, he says, and fall hard. Commentators note both the force of that plea and its flaw:
Leslie M. GrantJob is speaking of what "should be." Yet there is no doubt that these things will be the eventual end of the ungodly. So it would have been wiser for him to wait quietly for God to act in His own time, instead of complaining that His judgment was too slow. But Job ends this section with a strong reason why judgment on the wicked should be swift: "he preys on the barren who do not bear, and does no good for the widow" (v.21). This was certainly not a description of Job himself.
That last line matters. Job is not only arguing about the world; he is quietly clearing his own name. The older rendering, "the barren who do not bear," means the same as the ESV's "barren, childless woman."
The Day Reserved for Christ
Job's whole chapter runs on one unanswered question: why does God see all this and stay silent? The answer Job could not yet have is that God has fixed a day of reckoning and handed it to another:
William KellyHow is it that He allows it to pass as He does, and that there is no day of retribution now? Well, we can answer that perfectly. It is all reserved for Christ... And so it is reserved for the Lord Jesus to execute judgment. All judgment is committed to the Son, because He is the Son of man, and as the Son of man He has been hated.
Silence, then, is not approval. And God has not left the poor alone. The very people Job describes became the object of Christ's mission:
William KellyNow what a wonderful love it is to the very persons to whom the gospel is preached. It was to the "poor" the gospel was preached; they were especially the object of the Lord Jesus. There never was such a thing before, since the world began. No one ever made them his great aim, and that for eternity. But Job could not know anything of that.
Summary
- Preys — The oppressor does not just ignore the childless woman and the widow. He devours them.
- Defenceless — Job names two victims with no natural protector. God calls Himself Father to the fatherless and Judge for the widow.
- Answer — The verse answers Eliphaz. Obvious wrongdoers prosper, so suffering does not prove sin.
- Delay — Job wanted swift judgment. Commentators say he would have done better to wait for God to act in His own time.
- Reserved — No day of retribution now does not mean no day at all. God has given all judgment to Christ, who meanwhile brings good news to the poor.