Job 24:12

Out of the city. Not only from deserts and farms, but also from the cities, comes the cry of the oppressed. Job’s object was to show, in opposition to the mistaken doctrine of his friends, that God does not hastily punish every evil work or reward every good one.

Vice often remains long unpunished and virtue unrewarded; therefore a man’s character must not be judged by his prosperity or adversity. Herein lay the basic fault in the philosophy of Job’s would-be friends, and, in fact, in that of the Jews as a nation.