Job Chapter 24
No Justice but the Justice We Make
According to Judaism, Jews follow the 613 Torah laws. Non-Jews have their own laws, the Noachide Laws.
No blasphemy
No idolatry
No murder
No stealing
No adulty
No eating from a live animal
Set up a system of laws and judges.
Five laws are self-explanatory. One law is a three-legged sheep joke. Only one law is positive. Set up the legal system. At the risk of sounding like a personal statement for a law school application, the legal system ensures social stability and keeps us from killing each other. It's not perfect. It can reinforce system oppression. The current Supreme Court is a disaster. Yet, the fact that you can sue a negligent doctor or prosecute a rapist saves everyone pain and suffering. Imagine how many people would be alive today if Gaza had a stable non-Hamas government that either prevented October 7 or turned over the October 7 murderers and rapists for prosecution.
In this chapter, Job is again complaining about the unfairness of the wicked prospering, but we should note that he's talking about injustices with human solutions. G-d might be the author of all the world's ills, but G-d can't kill everyone who moves a border stone or steals sheep. You can't just wait for G_d to deal with your noisy neighbor and his meth lab.
“They remove boundary stones, steal flocks and claim them” - Job 24:2
Remember that episode of House of the Dragon when the Brackens and Blackwoods start fighting over border stones. The more they fight, the angrier they get. Then one pulls a sword and someone else says “you wouldn't dare” and the next scene shows a field full of corpses? That's why we have real estate law. In a feudal or tribal system, real estate law might be tricky since there's not necessarily a final arbiter of property lines. A particularly industrious and conniving member of one group can just move the border and no one can stop them. Unless someone pulls a sword and who really wants to pull a sword over a few feet at the edge of Westeros?
Real estate law is boring but important. It determines the boundaries, what you can do with your boundaries, the zoning restrictions and the placement of fences. All the documents are in a public office. If you build your fence on someone else's property, they can legally take that fence down. We even have the dreaded homeowner associations. I'm a poor schmuck who grew up poor and has spent his entire life in rentals so I don't have firsthand experience with these HOA's but I hear that they are lovely people who only want what's best for the neighborhood.
Either way, Job is asking G-d to step in due to property disputes.
An lo, G-d did answer and created lawyers.
Job still doesn't appreciate G-d.
Job is also asking G-d to punish people who take donkeys (either through theft or debt) and seize bulls from widows (definitely through debt). At this point, Job talks about how much poor people suffer because of the wealthy and the selfish. “They chase the needy off the roads” is a particularly damning line since we still do that.
A dirty little secret about Giuliani. In the 1990s, New Yorkers loved him because as much as we all want to help the homeless, most don't want to interact with them. Enterprising poor people still hold doors open and ask for a tip. In the 90s, strangers would clean off windshields while the car was stopped in traffic and ask for payment. Over in oh-so-liberal San Francisco, they fucked up the housing market so much that they created more homeless people. In order to deal with their guilt, they call them “unhoused” because that sounds less scary. It doesn't help anyone, but virtue signaling is fun.
Even in an era of class resentment and billionaire-hatred, we still don't know what to do with poor people. Sure, we might give money to people who ask us outright. We will vote for politicians who vote in favor of social programs but we also like to restrict those social programs. No welfare unless you meet with social worker whose entire job is to remind you that the state owns you. No food stamps if you can't show that you are working for some kind of pay. Like the people that Job rails against, we don't want to see the needy. We'd prefer if they'd hide. We will share memes about how we should give the homeless people homes because jail is more expensive, but we still need to pay our own rent. I personally have been refraining from calling my landlord for repairs because I owe him six months back rent and I don't want him remembering that fact until I can at least get it down a few thousand. I don't want to join the homeless.
We have a system of laws but the laws don't always work. Yet, we have to ask - is that G-d's fault? Job blames G-d. Job is angry that G-d is not doing more to help people. According to one aphorism, G-d makes poor people so that we can give tzeddaka. I feel like that's a nice thought, but I'd be perfectly happy giving tzeddaka to an animal hospital or a cancer research clinic instead. We don't need poor people to prove that we are generous. In fact, it'd be better if we could all be fed, clothed and housed without anxiety.
The rest of the chapter also concerns crimes. People break into houses. They commit adultery. Murderers kill the poor and the needy which makes me think that Job is talking about people who hoard food to drive up the prices and cause mass starvation. So we need laws, courts and a police force to stop these people. Or marriage counselors. Definitely adultery is symptom that a marriage is going badly. Divorce lawyers are also available.
Finally Job gives one of those “may all these people suffer. I want them to suffer.” The problem is that G-d isn't really running around bonking all the adulterers and burglars on the head.
The irony of this chapter is the fact that Job is no longer disputing his friends. He's talking about the world as it is. Bildad will talk in the next chapter, but even Bildad is muted. At this point, one can easily respond with “oh come on Job. That's not G-d's job.” We are human beings with human systems. We fucked this world up. We are unable to deal with poor people and burglars. We have a system of laws and judges. We have failed to make it fair and equitable.
At least no one is moving the fucking border stones.
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