What Does Job 24:10 Mean?
They make the naked walk without clothing; and from the hungry, they lift the sheaves.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
They cause him to go naked without clothing, and they take away the sheaf from the hungry;THE KEY
A sheaf being carried is not proof of provision when the hungry are left without it.
THE MEANING
The verse lays deprivation bare: a body goes uncovered while food is taken from the hungry person’s reach. It reveals how a harvest can move through the world while hunger remains.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that food’s existence means provision has been made: a sheaf can be present and still be withheld from the hungry.
THE ROOT
נָשְׂאוּ
nas'u
GROWS FROM
נשא
nasa
to lift, carry, bear
“lift the sheaves” in this verse is nas'u. The verb rendered “take away” carries the physical sense of lifting and carrying. Applied to a sheaf while hunger marks the people, it makes the deprivation concrete: food is moved, but need remains.
ALSO GROWS
nose': one who carries or bears
נֹשֵׂא
The carrier is named through the same root that describes moving the sheaf away.
massa: burden, load
מַשָּׂא
A carried load grows from the same root, linking the removal of food with the act of bearing.
רְעֵבִים
re'evim
GROWS FROM
רעב
ra'av
hunger; to be hungry
“from the hungry” in this verse is re'evim. The line names hunger directly beside the sheaf. Need and harvested food occupy the same scene, making the deprivation bodily and immediate.
ALSO GROWS
ra'ev: hungry
רָעֵב
The singular form names the person’s bodily condition.
ra'av: famine, hunger
רָעָב
The related noun extends hunger from an individual’s condition to a wider state of scarcity.
לְבוּשׁ
levush
GROWS FROM
לבש
lavash
to put on, wear
The word for clothing grows from the action of wearing. The line sets the missing covering of the body beside the missing food, showing deprivation reaching both shelter and sustenance.
ALSO GROWS
lavash: to wear, put on
לָבַשׁ
The verb names the act that clothing makes possible, an act absent from the exposed body.
malbush: garment, clothing
מַלְבּוּשׁ
This related noun names the covering that the verse says is missing.
THE PATTERN
Harvest and wages expose whether provision reaches the people who are hungry and laboring.
On his day you give him his wage, and the sun does not go down upon it, for he is bowed down and carries his living soul toward it. Lest he call out against you to the LORD, and it be missing in you.Is it not to break your bread for the hungry, and to bring the wandering poor into your house? When you see the naked, cover him, and do not hide yourself from your own flesh.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
If you see the donkey of the one who hates you crouching under his load, and would hold back from helping him, you shall surely unload it with him.Job’s נָשְׂאוּ (nas’u, they carry or lift) describes the sheaf taken from the hungry; Exodus uses מַשָּׂא (massa, burden or load), from the same נשא (nasa, lift, carry, bear) root. The shared root reveals two directions for carrying: food can be removed from someone in need, or a burden can be helped.
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