Indeed, like wild donkeys in the desert, the poor go to work foraging for food; the wasteland is food for their children.
Parallel translations
- WEB Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, they go out to their work, seeking diligently for food. The wilderness yields them bread for their children.
- KJV Behold, as wild asses in the desert, go they forth to their work; rising betimes for a prey: the wilderness yieldeth food for them and for their children.
- NKJV Indeed, like wild donkeys in the desert, They go out to their work, searching for food. The wilderness yields food for them and for their children.
- NASB “Behold, like wild donkeys in the wilderness They go out scavenging for food in their activity, As bread for their children in the desert.
- NLT Like wild donkeys in the wilderness, the poor must spend all their time looking for food, searching even in the desert for food for their children.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The poor, driven to the wilderness, scavenge for food like wild donkeys. It matters because oppression reduces people to desperate scrounging.
Overview
Job pictures the dispossessed laboring in the desert, foraging for whatever bread the wasteland yields for their children. Stripped of land and security, they live like wild beasts seeking survival. The verse magnifies the tragedy of poverty caused by human cruelty, a condition God notices and ultimately redeems.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Ps 104:23Man goes forth to his work and to his labor until evening.
- Job 39:5–7Who set the wild donkey free? Who released the swift donkey from the harness?
- Mic 2:1Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.
- Job 5:5The hungry consume his harvest, taking it even from the thorns, and the thirsty pant after his wealth.
- Job 12:6The tents of robbers are safe, and those who provoke God are secure—those who carry their god in their hands.
- Gen 27:40You shall live by the sword and serve your brother. But when you rebel, you will tear his yoke from your neck.”
- Prov 4:16For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; they are deprived of slumber until they make someone fall.
- Hos 8:9For they have gone up to Assyria like a wild donkey on its own. Ephraim has hired lovers.
- John 18:28Then they led Jesus away from Caiaphas into the Praetorium. By now it was early morning, and the Jews did not enter the Praetorium, to avoid being defiled and unable to eat the Passover.
- Zeph 3:3Her princes are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves, leaving nothing for the morning.
- Acts 23:12When daylight came, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul.
- Job 24:14When daylight is gone, the murderer rises to kill the poor and needy; in the night he is like a thief.
- Jer 2:24a wild donkey at home in the wilderness, sniffing the wind in the heat of her desire. Who can restrain her passion? All who seek her need not weary themselves; in mating season they will find her.
- Hos 7:6For they prepare their heart like an oven while they lie in wait; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.
- Gen 16:12He will be a wild donkey of a man, and his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 24:5 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.