Matthew Poole and continuators on Job 24:5

5. Behold, as wild Asses in the desert , go they forth to their work , rising betimes for a Prey: the Wilderness yieldeth food for them , and for their Children. ,

which are wild, and lawless, and unteachable, and fierce, and greedy of Prey, or Food, which they snatch out of the goods or labours of the Husbandman: in all which they are fit emblems of these men. Or, these wild-men. For so this word signifies, Gen. 16. 12. as elsewhere wild Asses. The particle, as, is not in the Hebrew.

Which is the proper Habitation of wild Asses, Ier. 2. 24. If this be understood of the wild men, he placeth them in the Dis[illegible: 1+ letters]t and Wilderness, either because they by their spoils and violences have destroyed or driven away the people, as is intimated Verse 4. and thereby turned populous places into Deserts; or because such places as have but few Houses and Inhabitants, (which are o[illegible: 1+ letters]t so called, as Gen. 21. 20, 21. Ios. 15. 61, 62. 1 Kings 2. 34. & 9. 18. Isa. 42. 11. Matth. 3. 1.) are most fit for their Robberies.

i. e. To spoil and rob, which is their constant work and trade.

They are so diligent and industrious in that work, that they will fetch food for them and theirs, even out of Desert-places in which the Owners can very hardly subsist.

n Either 1. the poor whom they spoiled and drove away from their own former habitations into Deserts, where they hid themselves, and wrought hard for a subsistence. Or rather 2. the Oppressors, who are more fitly compared to wild Asses, and more truly said to seek for prey, than those poor oppressed persons mentioned v. 4. and of whom he speaks both in the foregoing and following Verses.

q Or servants; for the word signifies both children and servants, even the whole Family.