Job 24:9

Job wonders why God (who is Almighty) does not take account of all that happens in time. He wonders why those who know Him see no serious dealing on His part with gross evil when it is present. For, he says, "Some remove landmarks," thereby stealing land from others; they steal flocks of sheep by force and feed on them; "they drive away the donkey of the fatherless; they take the widow's ox as a pledge."

People took articles as security for loans, and made similar deals, from very early times. The law then set restrictions on this, so that no one could take unfair advantage through it. Exodus 22:26; Deuteronomy 24:10-17; Job 22:6; Job 24:3, 9; Amos 2:8.

A creditor might take a pledge from his poor neighbour, but not the hand-mill which ground his corn from day to day: that would be taking a man's life as a pledge. The law punished with death the greed that went so far as to steal a man.

"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… "They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor. They cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry." There might be a sheaf or two forgotten at harvest, but they have found it out, and they are after them to get the sheaf back. "Which make oil within their walls." The owners employ them to pile up their own abundance — they make the oil, but never have a drop of it for themselves.

Job 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 glaring cases were obvious to them?… How can Eliphaz make such facts fit his theory that evil is always punished in this life? But 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.

God does not take any notice of it, and the reason is that He is waiting for that day.

Of all the helpless ones who appeal to our compassion, surely the widow and the fatherless have the first claim. Here God surrounds them with the powerful defence of His own arm… All through Scripture these two groups stand out as the special object of God's care. So they should be objects of our compassionate concern. James accordingly says, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."

What a wonderful love it is to the very people to whom the gospel is preached. It was to the "poor" that 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 know nothing of that.