He draweth also the mighty with his power: he riseth up, and no man is sure of life.
Job 24:22 falls within the extended debate about affliction between Job and his three friends that spans chapters 4 through 31 in three rounds of speeches. It belongs to Job's pleading of his cause before his friends because he could not find God to plead before Him face to face. In the chapter he describes wicked people who move boundary markers, seize flocks by force, drive off the donkey of the fatherless, take the widow's ox as security, and push the needy out of the way. He sets out that wicked course to contrast it with his own life, in which he rescued the crying poor and the fatherless and the helpless, made the widow's heart rejoice, and acted as eyes to the blind and feet to the lame and a father to the poor. The chapter is thus a most complete justification of himself and vindication of his own self-righteousness.
On another understanding the verse is part of the arguments spoken by Job's friends rather than by Job himself. Their statements are recorded in an inspired book yet are not necessarily true, being generally true in themselves but misapplied to Job's case. The verse therefore cannot be used to conclude that a person's suffering proves God's displeasure against him.
Job 24:22 falls within the extended debate about affliction between Job and his three friends that spans chapters 4 through 31 in three rounds of speeches. It belongs to Job's pleading of his cause before his friends because he could not find God to plead before Him face to face. In the chapter he describes wicked people who move boundary markers, seize flocks by force, drive off the donkey of the fatherless, take the widow's ox as security, and push the needy out of the way. He sets out that wicked course to contrast it with his own life, in which he rescued the crying poor and the fatherless and the helpless, made the widow's heart rejoice, and acted as eyes to the blind and feet to the lame and a father to the poor. The chapter is thus a most complete justification of himself and vindication of his own self-righteousness.
On another understanding the verse is part of the arguments spoken by Job's friends rather than by Job himself. Their statements are recorded in an inspired book yet are not necessarily true, being generally true in themselves but misapplied to Job's case. The verse therefore cannot be used to conclude that a person's suffering proves God's displeasure against him.