Job 24:7

"They cause the naked to lodge without clothing" — that is what these wicked rich do. They have no pity for them; they make use of them for their work… "Which make oil within their walls." They work to produce the rich man's abundance — they make the oil, but they never have a drop of it for themselves — "and tread their wine-presses and suffer thirst." There is no wine for them.

Job depicts these poor starving sufferers, driven out like animals, to gather a bare living for their children as best they can. They seek work even from their oppressors, and reap their fields and glean in their vineyards. Barely covered with rags, they shiver in the cold and rain as they look for shelter in the rocks.

The sun has gone down; the chill of midnight creeps over his sleeping form, his rest is broken and his health is at risk. His skin needs a covering and warmth. Now where can this be found if the garment is pledged and kept? Nowhere. And so God, in His kindness, ordered that the garment pledged during the day must go back at night, so that no harm should come… Touches of this kind remind us how detailed God's regard is. They show how deep His gracious care is for the details of our life.

The poor are robbed of their very garments; they toil hungry among the sheaves; at the oil press and in the vintage they are kept from having any share; the oppressed groan in the city — and God takes no notice of it! How can Eliphaz make such facts fit 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?

I distinguish between the times that are not hidden from the Almighty, and those who know Him not seeing His days of retribution. It would not have been strange in people ignorant of Him. It is the puzzle of psalms and prophets, and must remain so until Christ solves it.

Now what a wonderful love it is to the very people 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. Nobody ever made them his great object, and that for eternity. But Job could not know anything of that.

And indeed what service could be more blessed than to clothe the naked and feed the hungry? The Lord Himself, in the judgment of the living nations, when He shall sit on the throne of His glory, names these things as services rendered to Himself in the person of His "brothers." He says, "I was hungry and you gave me food… I was naked and you clothed me." (Matthew 25:35-36.)