Job affirms, that wickedness often goes unpunished; but that there is a secret judgment remaining for the wicked.
Before Christ 1645.
Job 24:1. Why, seeing times, &c.— Job, having obviated in the foregoing chapter the charge of Eliphaz, as to a denial or disbelief of God's providence, goes on to express his wishes, that God, in his providence, would make a more visible distinction between the wicked and the righteous in this world; that thus good men might not fall into such mistakes by censuring suffering innocence, Job 24:1. And, whereas Eliphaz had compared him to the men of violence and oppression in the antediluvian world, he recites a long list of the crimes of those persons, which had justly drawn down the divine vengeance; placing it, as it were, in contrast with his own character, which he had sketched in the foregoing chapter, Job 24:11-12 thereby shewing the defect of the comparison, and, as it were, defying them to convict him of any of those crimes, Job 24:2-18. He concludes with shewing what, according to their principles, ought to be the general course of Providence with regard to wicked men, which, however, was notoriously not the case; and since it was not, it was plain that he had proved his point: the falsity of their general maxim was apparent; and their censure of him, merely for his sufferings, was a behaviour by no means justifiable; Job 24:19 to the end. Heath.
Times—days— These terms are in the Hebrew judicial: the former expresses seasons set apart for the public administration of justice; the latter seems rather to denote the time of such judgments being put in execution. Heath renders the verse, Why are not stated seasons set apart by the Almighty? And why do not those who know him see his days? Houbigant gives it a different interpretation, which, indeed, seems better to agree with the context: What is the reason why, when times have not been hidden by the Almighty from men, they attend not to his day, which they know? i.e. "Whence comes it to pass, that when God has not concealed the times or changes of human affairs, men should still act so blameably; as if God had hidden in perpetual darkness both things present and things future?"