Job (23:1–24:25)

When he has tested me, I will come forth as gold (23:10). Gold is used as a symbol of testing because of the process of purification it went through.222 Job will be tested by God just as the faithful are tested in Psalm 26:2 and 66:10. In the Amarna Letters (#7, 10), the Babylonian king writes that the gold brought to him was not pure enough.223 On metals in Job see comments on 28:1; see also sidebar on “Metals and Mining” at 28:1.

Boundary stones (24:2). Moving a boundary stone was regarded as an offense (see Deut. 19:14; 27:17; Prov. 22:28; 23:10). The “boundary stone” or “boundary marker” (cf. also the Babylonian kudurru) was not so much a marker of property as a legal document that contained an inscription describing the owner of the property and offered curses on those transgressing this legal right.224 On an Egyptian painting, an official bows down to a small standing stone, puts his hand to his mouth to take an oath, and swears: “As surely as the great god endures in the heaven, this boundary stone is properly erected.”225 The Wisdom of Amenemope advises not to move the markers on the borders of the fields.226

Kassite period kudurru known as the Michaux stone

Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons, courtesy of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France

Lacking clothes (24:7). See comment on 22:6.

Infant of the poor is seized for a debt (24:9). See comment on 17:3.

Crush olives … tread the winepresses (24:11). Olives were crushed in special presses such as the one found at Ekron. A huge stone crushing wheel was rolled over the olives placed on a basin. Stone weights (average of 300 kg. or 660 lbs.) were attached to a beam and the oil was squeezed out and ran into a vat.227 The NIV has a note on the translation of the uncertain Hebrew word behind “terraces,” reading it as “millstones,” which makes sense as millstones could also have been used to crush the olives.

Stone basin for crushing the olives

Kim Walton

Wine228 was made by treading the grapes with the feet in stone troughs in earlier times, as is known from Egyptian paintings. The juice was then collected in a smaller vat before it was stored in wine jars.