Job 24:11

Easy-to-Read Version

They press out olive oil and walk on grapes in the winepress, but they have nothing to drink.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
They crush olives in their presses;they tread the winepresses, but go thirsty.

Hebrew Names Version
They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst.

King James Version
Which make oil within their walls, and tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst.

English Standard Version
among the olive rows of the wicked they make oil; they tread the winepresses, but suffer thirst.

New Century Version
they crush olives to get oil and grapes to get wine, but they still go thirsty.

New English Translation
They press out the olive oil between the rows of olive trees; they tread the winepresses while they are thirsty.

Amplified Bible
"Within the walls [of the wicked] the poor make [olive] oil; They tread [the grapes in] the wine presses, but thirst.

New American Standard Bible
"Within the walls they produce oil; They tread wine presses but go thirsty.

World English Bible
They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst.

Geneva Bible (1587)
They yt make oyle betweene their walles, and treade their wine presses, suffer thirst.

Legacy Standard Bible
Within the walls they produce oil;They tread wine presses but thirst.

Berean Standard Bible
They crush olives within their walls; they tread the winepresses, but go thirsty.

Contemporary English Version
They crush olives to make oil and grapes to make wine— but still they go thirsty.

Complete Jewish Bible
between these men's rows [of olives], they make oil; treading their winepresses, they suffer thirst.

Darby Translation
They press out oil within their walls, they tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst.

George Lamsa Translation
Who are bent down under burdens during the reapers banquets, and are hungry when they carry the large basket and the measure. At times they are hungry at the reapers banquets; they tread the wine press, but they suffer thirst.

Good News Translation
They press olives for oil, and grapes for wine, but they themselves are thirsty.

Lexham English Bible
Between their terraces they press out oil; they tread the presses, but they are thirsty.

Literal Translation
They press out oil between their walls; they tread winepresses, but are thirsty.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
The poore are fayne to laboure in their oyle mylles, yee and to treade in their wyne presses, and yet to suffre thyrst.

American Standard Version
They make oil within the walls of these men; They tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst.

Bible in Basic English
Between the lines of olive-trees they make oil; though they have no drink, they are crushing out the grapes.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
They make oil within the rows of these men; they tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst.

King James Version (1611)
Which make oyle within their walles, and tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
The poore are fayne to labour in their oyle mylles, yea and to treade in their wyne presses, and yet to suffer thirst.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
They have unrighteously laid wait in narrow places, and have not known the righteous way.

English Revised Version
They make oil within the walls of these men; they tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Thei weren hid in myddai among the heepis of tho men, that thirsten, whanne the presses ben trodun.

Update Bible Version
They make oil inside their walls; They tread [their] winepresses, and suffer thirst.

Webster's Bible Translation
[Who] make oil within their walls, [and] tread [their] wine-presses, and suffer thirst.

New King James Version
They press out oil within their walls, And tread winepresses, yet suffer thirst.

New Living Translation
They press out olive oil without being allowed to taste it, and they tread in the winepress as they suffer from thirst.

New Life Bible
Among the olive trees they make oil. They crush grapes but they are thirsty.

New Revised Standard
between their terraces they press out oil; they tread the wine presses, but suffer thirst.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Between their walls, are they exposed to the sun, Wine-presses, they tread, and yet are thirsty;

Douay-Rheims Bible
They have taken their rest at noon among the stores of them, who after having trodden the winepresses suffer thirst.

Revised Standard Version
among the olive rows of the wicked they make oil; they tread the wine presses, but suffer thirst.

Young's Literal Translation
Between their walls they make oil, Wine-presses they have trodden, and thirst.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Within the walls they produce oil; They tread wine presses but thirst.

Contextual Overview

¹ "Why doesn't God All-Powerful set times for judgment? And why can't his followers know when those times will be? ² "People move property markers to get more of their neighbor's land. People steal flocks and lead them to other grasslands. ³ They steal a donkey that belongs to an orphan. They take a widow's cow until she pays what she owes them. They take a nursing baby from its mother. They take a poor person's child to guarantee a loan. ⁴ They force the poor to move out of their way and to get off the road. ⁵ "The poor are like wild donkeys that go out to the desert to find food. From morning to night they work to gather food for their children. ⁶ They have to work in the fields, harvesting grain. They work for the rich, gathering grapes in their vineyards. ⁷ They must sleep all night without clothes. They have no covers to protect them from the cold. ⁸ They are soaked with rain in the mountains. They stay close to the large rocks for shelter. They have no clothes, so they work naked. They carry piles of grain for others, but they go hungry. They press out olive oil and walk on grapes in the winepress, but they have nothing to drink. In the city you can hear the sad sounds of dying people. Those who are hurt cry out for help, but God does not listen. "Some people rebel against the light. They don't know what God wants. They don't live the way he wants. A murderer gets up at dawn and kills poor, helpless people. And at night he becomes a thief. A man who commits adultery waits for the night to come. He thinks, ‘No one will see me,' but still, he covers his face. When it is dark, evil people go out and break into houses. But during the day they lock themselves in their homes to avoid the light. The darkest night is their morning. They are friends with the terrors of darkness. " You say, ‘Evil people are taken away like things carried away in a flood. The land they own is cursed, so no one goes to work in their vineyards. As hot, dry weather melts away the winter snows, so the grave takes away those who have sinned. Their own mothers will forget them. Only the worms will want them. No one will remember them. They will be broken like a rotten stick! These evil people hurt women who have no children to protect them, and they refuse to help widows. By his power God removes the powerful. Even if they have a high position, they cannot be sure of their lives. They might feel safe and secure, but God is watching how they live. They might be successful for a while, but then they will be gone. Like everyone else, they will be cut down like grain.' "I swear these things are true! Who can prove that I lied? Who can show that I am wrong?" ⁹ They take a nursing baby from its mother. They take a poor person's child to guarantee a loan. They force the poor to move out of their way and to get off the road. "The poor are like wild donkeys that go out to the desert to find food. From morning to night they work to gather food for their children. They have to work in the fields, harvesting grain. They work for the rich, gathering grapes in their vineyards. They must sleep all night without clothes. They have no covers to protect them from the cold. They are soaked with rain in the mountains. They stay close to the large rocks for shelter. ¹⁰ They have no clothes, so they work naked. They carry piles of grain for others, but they go hungry.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Deuteronomy 25:4, Jeremiah 22:13, James 5:4

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 24:14 - General Colossians 4:1 - give

Cross-References

Genesis 24:13
Here I am, standing by this well of water, and the young women from the city are coming out to get water.

Genesis 24:14
I will say to one of them, ‘Please put your jar down so that I can drink.' Let her answer show whether she is the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. If she says, ‘Drink, and I will also give water to your camels,' I will know that she is the right one. It will be proof that you have shown kindness to my master."

Genesis 24:20
So Rebekah quickly poured all the water from her jar into the drinking trough for the camels. Then she ran to the well to get more water, and she gave water to all the camels.

Exodus 2:16
There was a priest there who had seven daughters. These girls came to that well to get water for their father's sheep. They were trying to fill the water trough with water.

Proverbs 12:10
Good people take good care of their animals, but the wicked know only how to be cruel.

John 4:7
A Samaritan woman came to the well to get some water, and Jesus said to her, "Please give me a drink."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

[Which] make oil within their walls,.... Not the poor within their own walls; as if the sense was, that they made their oil in a private manner within the walls of their houses, or in their cellars, lest it should be known and taken away from them; for such cannot be thought to have had oliveyards to make oil of; rather within the walls of their rich masters, where they were kept closely confined to their work, as if in a prison; or within the walls and fences of their oliveyards, where their olive presses stood; or best of all "within the rows q [of] their [olive trees]", as the word signifies, where having gathered the olives, they pressed out the oil in the presses and this they did at noon, in the heat of the day, as the word r for making oil is observed by some to signify, and yet had nothing given them to quench their thirst, as follows:

[and] tread [their] winepresses, and suffer thirst; after having gathered their grapes from their vines for them, they trod them in the winepresses, and made their wine, and yet would not allow them to drink of it to allay their thirst.

q בין שורתם "inter ordines", Mercerus, Piscator, Cocceius; so Sephorno, and some in Eliae Tishbi, p. 241. r יצהירו "meridiati sunt", V. L. so Bolducius, Schultens.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Which made oil within their walls - Or rather, they compel them to express oil within their walls. The word יצהירו yatshı̂yrû, rendered “made oil,” is from צחר tsachar, to shine, to give light; and hence, the derivatives of the word are used to denote light, and then oil, and thence the word comes to denote to press out oil for the purpose of light. Oil was obtained for this purpose from olives by pressing them, and the idea here is, that the poor were compelled to engage in this service for others without compensation. The expression “within their walls,” means probably within the walls of the rich; that is, within the enclosures where such presses were erected. They were taken away from their homes; compelled to toil for others; and confined for this purpose within enclosures erected for the purpose of expressing oil. Some have proposed to read this passage, “Between their walls they make them toil at noonday;” as if it referred to the cruelty of causing them to labor in the sweltering heat of the sun. But the former interpretation is the most common, and best agrees with the usual meaning of the word, and with the connection.

And tread their wine-presses and suffer thirst - They compel them to tread out their grapes without allowing them to slake their thirst from the wine. Such a treatment would, of course, be cruel oppression. A similar description is given by Addison in his letter from Italy:

Il povreo Abitante mira indarno

Il roseggiante Arancio e’l pingue grano,

Crescer dolente ei mira ed oli, e vini,

E de mirti odorar l’ ombra ei sdegna.

In mezzo alla Bonta della Natura

Maledetto languisce, e deatro a cariche

Di vino vigne muore per la sete.

“The poor inhabitant beholds in vain

The reddening orange and the swelling grain;

Joyless he sees the growing oils and wines

And in the myrtle’s fragrant shade repines;

Starves, in the midst of nature’s bounty curst,

And in the loaden vineyard dies for thirst.”

Addison’s works, vol. i. pp. 51-53. Ed. Lond. 1721.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Job 24:11. Make oil within their walls — Thus stripped of all that on which they depended for clothing and food, they are obliged to become vassals to their lord, labour in the fields on scanty fare, or tread their wine-presses, from the produce of which they are not permitted to quench their thirst.