to put (used in a great variety of applications · conjunction + verb, qal jussive, 3rd person masculine singular
liar
יַכְזִיבֵ֑נִיyakh.zi.Ve.ni
H3576
to lie (i.e. deceive) · verb, hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix
make
שׂוּםsûwm
H7760
to put (used in a great variety of applications
speech
מִלָּתִֽיmi.la.Ti
H4405
a word · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
worth
לְ֝אַ֗לle.'Al
H408
not (the qualified negation · preposition + noun, common both genders singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 9:24 The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: he covereth the faces of the judges thereof; if not, where, and who is he?
Job 6:28 Now therefore be content, look upon me; for it is evident unto you if I lie.
Job 11:2-3 Should not the multitude of words be answered? and should a man full of talk be justified?
Job 27:4 My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit.
Job 15:2 Should a wise man utter vain knowledge, and fill his belly with the east wind?
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 24:18–end
Job here, in the conclusion of his discourse,
I. Gives some further instances of the wickedness of these cruel bloody men. 1. Some are pirates and robbers at sea. To this many learned interpreters apply those difficult expressions (Job 24:18), He is swift upon the waters. Privateers choose those ships that are the best sailors. In these swift ships they cruise from one channel to another, to pick up prizes; and this brings them in so much wealth that their portion is cursed in the earth, and they behold not the way of the vineyards, that is (as bishop Patrick explains it), they despise the employment of those who till the ground and plant vineyards as poor and unprofitable. But others make t…
(So Job 9:24).
He tries to show Job's rashness (Job 23:3), by arguments borrowed from Eliphaz (Job 15:15, with which compare Job 11:17.
Next: Job Chapter 25
John Gill on Job 24:25
And if it be not so now,.... If this is not the case of men of such wicked lives as above described, do not prosper in the world, and increase in riches, and do not pass through the world with impunity, and die quietly, in the full possession of their honour and wealth:
who will make me a liar? where is the man? let him stand forth and appear, and disprove what has been said, and make out the doctrine delivered to be false doctrine, and a lie; for no lie is of the truth:
and make my speech nothing worth; vain, useless, and unprofitable; truth is valuable, like gold, silver and precious stones; but error is as wood, hay, and stubble, and nothing worth, yea, to be detested and rejected: or l…
22 And He preserveth the mighty by His strength;
Such an one riseth again, though he despaired of life.
23 He giveth him rest, and he is sustained,
And His eyes are over their ways.
24 They are exalted - a little while, - then they are no more,
And they are sunken away, snatched away like all others,
And as the top of the stalk they are cut off. -
25 And if it is not so, who will charge me with lying,
And make my assertion worthless?
Though it becomes manifest after their death how little the ungodly, who were only feared by men, were beloved, the form of their death itself is by no means such as to reveal the retributive justice of God. And does it become at all manifest during their life?…
The Church Fathers
"Otherwise who can accuse me of lies? If they are otherwise.
"If it is not so, may his wrath make me lie," that is, if sinners do not go into that scorn that I have mentioned before, may the wrath of God prove false what I have said.
And if it be not so now, who will convict me of having lied, and set my words before God? If it be not so as he tells, then surely all people are able to convict him of falsehood. Why then is it said, And if it be not so now, who will convict me of having lied? i.e. whilst we know that, one who is false, it is allowed anyone to find fault with? But if we sift out the sense of the speaker with exact questioning, how light the things are that he put forth, we speedily discover. For the righteous man, though he does ever speak any thing wrong, yet it is far from meet that he should be judged by the unrighteous and ill living. Whence the holy man lowering the pride of his friends, not even if it be so, but even 'if it be not so' as he set forth, is confident that he can never be found fault with, because assuredly those are able rightly to reprove things that are false, who are not taught to do things that are false. For the daring of reproof against deceit those persons lose, who still live on principles of deceit. Therefore he says, And if it be riot so now, who will convict me of having lied? As if he said in plain words; 'All things are so as I have set forth, but if they were not so, I could not a whit be charged home with them by you; for whilst ye still give way to your own deceit, ye are not able to find fault with the deceit of another.' In which place it is fitly added; And to set my words before God. For whoever really finds fault with false sayings in the true way, in thinking on the things he has heard and estimating them by the rule of truth 'sets words before God,' because to himself in the eye of Truth he makes proof what he should outwardly decree against falsehood. Since 'to set words before God' is with the interior Judge kept in view to estimate the exterior sayings. Thus the holy man does not reckon it possible for his 'words to be set before God' by friends behaving with pride. As if he said in plain terms, 'The things which I utter ye are for this reason unable to set before the Judge, because by committing sin ye hide His face from you?' Which same, however, nothing hinders from being understood in type of Holy Church as well, which whilst for her weak members she is found fault with by the scoffing of heretics, laughs to scorn that same craftiness of their scoffing, because with God it is more tolerable that a man should be prostrated…
Dictionary and topics
Homicide · 24:22; — 24:22;
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
These sentiments appear to oppose Job’s observations, so some scholars suggest that they were the words of Bildad or Zophar. However, Job might have been pronouncing curses on the wicked, sarcastically quoting his friends’ views, or saying that the fate of the wicked presented by Eliphaz (5:2-7; 15:17-25), Bildad (8:8-19; 18:5-21), and Zophar (20:4-29) also overtakes the righteous (21:23-26).
Rashi on Job 24:25
And if it is not so, then [If it is not] as I said, let one of you come and prove me a liar.
and make my words as nought [That is, my words] with which I criticize Him to know His standards, that He is slow to anger with the wicked, but He chastises those who love Him as I do, and He does not put them to death, as he complains above (23:17): “Because I was not cut off from before the darkness,” but those who remove the landmarks and commit all these [crimes] were not smitten with suffering.
