Job 24:12 NIV: The groans of the dying rise from the city, and the souls of the wounded cry out for help. But God charges no one with wrongdoing.

Job 24:12

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◄ Job 24:12 ►

New International Version (© 2011)
The groans of the dying rise from the city, and the souls of the wounded cry out for help. But God charges no one with wrongdoing.

King James Bible
Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out: yet God layeth not folly to them.

American Standard Version
From out of the populous city men groan, And the soul of the wounded crieth out: Yet God regardeth not the folly.

Young's Literal Translation
Because of enmity men do groan, And the soul of pierced ones doth cry, And God doth not give praise.

Job 24:12 Additional Translations
Clarke's Commentary on the Bible

Men groan from out of the city - This is a new paragraph. After having shown the oppressions carried on in the country, he takes a view of those carried on in the town. Here the miseries are too numerous to be detailed. The poor in such places are often in the most wretched state; they are not only badly fed, and miserably clothed, but also most unwholesomely lodged. I was once appointed with a benevolent gentleman, J. S., Esq., to visit a district in St. Giles's London, to know the real state of the poor. We took the district in House Row, and found each dwelling full of people, dirt, and wretchedness. Neither old nor young had the appearance of health: some were sick, and others lying dead, in the same place! Several beds, if they might be called such, on the floor in the same apartment; and, in one single house, sixty souls! These were groaning under various evils; and the soul of the wounded, wounded in spirit, and afflicted in body, cried out to God and man for help! It would have required no subtle investigation to have traced all these miseries to the doors, the hands, the lips, and the hearts, of ruthless landlords; or to oppressive systems of public expenditure in the support of ruinous wars, and the stagnation of trade and destruction of commerce occasioned by them: to which must be added the enormous taxation to meet this expenditure.

Yet God layeth not folly to them - He does not impute their calamities to their own folly. Or, according to the Vulgate, Et Deus inultum abire non patitur; "And God will not leave (these disorders) unpunished." But the Hebrew may be translated And God doth not attend to their prayers. Job's object was to show, in opposition to the mistaken doctrine of his friends, that God did not hastily punish every evil work, nor reward every good one. That vice often went long unpunished, and virtue unrewarded; and that we must not judge of a man's state either by his prosperity or adversity. Therefore, there might be cases in which the innocent oppressed poor were crying to God for a redress of their grievances, and were not immediately heard; and in which their oppressors were faring sumptuously every day, without any apparent mark of the Divine displeasure. These sentiments occur frequently.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

groan

Exodus 1:13,14 And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor...

Exodus 2:23,24 And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage...

Exodus 22:27 For that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he cries to me...

Judges 10:16 And they put away the strange gods from among them, and served the LORD: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.

Psalm 12:5 For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, said the LORD...

Ecclesiastes 4:1 So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed...

Isaiah 52:5 Now therefore, what have I here, said the LORD, that my people is taken away for nothing? they that rule over them make them to howl...

wounded

Psalm 69:26 For they persecute him whom you have smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom you have wounded.

Psalm 109:22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.