TEXT [Commentary]

  3.   Traditional assertions are wrong (24:18-25)

18 “But they disappear like foam down a river.

Everything they own is cursed,

and they are afraid to enter their own vineyards.

19 The grave[*] consumes sinners

just as drought and heat consume snow.

20 Their own mothers will forget them.

Maggots will find them sweet to eat.

No one will remember them.

Wicked people are broken like a tree in the storm.

21 They cheat the woman who has no son to help her.

They refuse to help the needy widow.

22 “God, in his power, drags away the rich.

They may rise high, but they have no assurance of life.

23 They may be allowed to live in security,

but God is always watching them.

24 And though they are great now,

in a moment they will be gone like all others,

cut off like heads of grain.

25 Can anyone claim otherwise?

Who can prove me wrong?”

NOTES

24:18 they disappear like foam down a river. Or, “they are swift [light] on the surface of the waters.” The lines in this poem are concise and metaphorical. The image seems to be the volatility and vulnerability of foam.

24:19 The grave consumes sinners. The best that can be said is that this verse is very elliptical; words seem to stand almost independently. Though poetry can sometimes “name ideas” for the reader to construct into sentences, it is probable there has been some disruption of the text here.

24:20 Their own mothers will forget them. In the words of the poetic imagery, “the womb forgets him, the worm finds him sweet.” This line is regularly emended to “the squares of the town forget them” (RSV), a reference to death found elsewhere in Job (7:9-10). Burns (1989) defends this conjecture on the basis of its restoration of the mythological reference of the text. The folly of this widely accepted change is that it actually removes the mythological reference of the text (Geyer 1992). Womb, maggot, and tree are present in other judgment oracles and are deliberately brought together here, no matter how incongruent they may seem to an uninitiated reader. The sinner (24:19) is a tyrant of the type described in Isa 14:4; in place of his luxury will be the maggot, and the womb will forget him because he will have no descendants (24:20, 22). Ezekiel spoke of a tree whose branches are in heaven and whose roots are in the abyss, a tree better than any in Eden (Ezek 31:8-15). This tree, representing the tyranny of the nations, will be cut down. All nations will desert the tree (i.e., it will not be remembered) and it will descend to Sheol.

24:22 God, in his power. The Heb. has “the mighty one” (’abbirim [TH47, ZH52]), but the Gr. has “the powerless one,” probably a translation of ’evyon [TH34, ZH36] (poor). The Gr. indicates a textual variant, which may likely be original (Orlinsky 1964:75-76) since it would continue the thought of the previous verse. Job 24:22 would then read: “he pulls down the poor in his power, he may rise but has no assurance in life.” In this case the verb mashak [TH4900, ZH5432] (“prolong”; cf. RSV, ESV) must be taken in the sense of “seize,” much as in the prayer of David in Ps 28:3 (“do not drag me away with the wicked”).

24:23 may be allowed to live in security. The Heb. lacks the word “live” (shebeth [TH3427, ZH3782]), no doubt as part of poetic technique, which is easily understood. This kind of abbreviation is part of the difficulty in understanding other less clear lines of the poem.

24:24 like all others. The Heb. kakkol (“like all”) has always been regarded as unusual and banal, especially with the metaphor of a plant in the closing line. Both the Gr. and 11QtgJob make reference to a plant. The mallow (RSV, NRSV, REB) is based on the Gr. molochē, but it is not certain it is related to the Latin malva, from which the English is derived. A number of Semitic languages have a base form of kll as the name for a plant with an umbel (Reider 1935:273-275); the term seems to refer to the umbel itself. The Arabic is used for either of two plants, one with a cluster of yellow flowers in a semi-circle at the end of a branch, the other with large branches spreading on the earth with a small circular cluster of yellow and white flowers at the end. The late Heb. and Aramaic word for crown (kelila’; Jastrow 642) is a derivative. The line says the wicked are bent and withered like a flower cluster; the next line corresponds with this.

COMMENTARY [Text]

The closing poem depicts the destruction of the wicked in pictures that would give comfort to one in sorrow. As happens with poems of this type, the allusions of some of its lines have become obscure over time, and some may have been deliberately elusive. This has also created some problems with its transmission. This was not deemed a weakness but rather a normative aspect of the way of wisdom, which was filled with riddles (Prov 1:6). This is part of the communicative technique. Wisdom did not present a worldview in deductive propositions. Wisdom assumed a worldview and attempted to teach harmony with it. Its method was to draw comparisons; the basic meaning of “proverb” (mashal [TH4912, ZH5442]) is to create an analogy. The power of analogies lies in the ambiguity they provide for the hearer. Hearers are able to make them specific to their own thought; the images create change according to the frame of mind of the individual concerned.

The poem describes what everyone imagines for the cruel, for those who have no respect for others or their property. Their own properties should be cursed. Their time should be cut short like the snow in the heat of the sun. You want to forget they were born; they should have no descendants or legacy. The worm should relish their dead body; there should be no memory left of them. The bigger they are, the harder they should fall, like a giant tree overcome by twisting winds (24:20). How can anyone feel sorrow for those who “feed” on widows who have no family to protect them? No good can ever come from such cruel people. These tyrants, like all tyrants, are more bluster than real power; they live with paranoia. Though they can overpower others in their might, they are quite aware that there is always someone who can overpower them. Who should trust them, when they have no respect for anyone? They have no assurance of anything for all their might; the higher they rise, the more vulnerable they become (24:22-24). The wicked in all their power can never escape the mighty one who will pull them down. They may secure themselves and provide for themselves, but they can never escape the watchful eye of God. Their glory lasts for a short time, and like everyone else they receive the fatal blow and are silenced. Eliphaz had said that God would shut the mouth of evil (5:16); the closing of this poem (24:24) uses the same unusual word (qapats [TH7092, ZH7890]) to describe the silencing of the wicked. The wicked dry up as quickly as a plant. In this life power and glory last but a moment, and the more one has possessed, the more fearful is its loss.

Poems such as Job’s in 24:18-25 were not unusual. Perhaps one of the best examples is the second chapter of Habakkuk. The taunt song against the Assyrians (Hab 2:6-20) was not to make those cruel monsters shake in their boots. Every Assyrian monarch lived in fear; the boasts and the lies of their annals are a window into their terror and insecurity. The taunt song of Habakkuk was intended to encourage the faithful, those who knew the Lord was in his holy Temple. The song was to exhort God’s people to keep an eye on tyrants. Before long they are silenced and dry up; if their name is remembered at all, it is remembered in ignominy and scorn.

Job knew all of this was true (24:25) in more than one sense. Such taunt songs are the true words of the prophets, but they are also the words abused by the wise. However, not all those who suffer the fate he just described are wicked, and no one could prove him wrong on this point either. Further, the fate of the wicked just described does nothing to justify the pathetic misery of those who suffer under their tyranny, whose pain is never alleviated, who spend their whole lives in struggle. No word of wisdom could undo his words about the poor (24:5-8, 10-12).

At this point, the dialog between Job and his friends has fully come to an impasse and nothing has been resolved. The friends were impressive in articulating traditional truths, but Job remained adamant that these discourses did not address his situation. In his final speech, Eliphaz advanced his position with vigor: the righteous do not suffer at God’s hands; therefore, Job is not righteous. Eliphaz tried to identify Job’s sin (22:9); it was the usual accusation of social injustice so common in the prophets. According to Eliphaz, Job had assumed that his deeds were hidden because God is so far off in the heavens (22:12-14), but Job was wrong. God is very aware of what happens on earth, and he would yet respond to Job’s prayer (22:27). Job countered in chapters 23–24 with points he had made before: God is far away, he is hidden, he answers no questions, and the wicked continually go unpunished. The righteous suffer; they gain nothing from their piety. Bildad will come back to the question about righteousness before God (ch 25), but that will be the end of the dialog. He will not get to respond further; there is nothing more to be said for his view of the world. His speech is broken off by Job’s long monologue (chs 26–31). In it Job ponders the mysteries of the world, the mysteries of wisdom, and his own integrity.