Ezekiel 33:15

33:15 He ¹  returns what was taken in pledge, pays back what he has stolen, and follows the statutes that give life, ²  committing no iniquity. He will certainly live – he will not die.

Exodus 22:26

22:26 If you do take ³  the garment of your neighbor in pledge, you must return it to him by the time the sun goes down, ⁴ 

Deuteronomy 24:12-13

24:12 If the person is poor you may not use what he gives you as security for a covering. ⁵  24:13 You must by all means ⁶  return to him at sunset the item he gave you as security so that he may sleep in his outer garment and bless you for it; it will be considered a just ⁷  deed by the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 24:17

24:17 You must not pervert justice due a resident foreigner or an orphan, or take a widow’s garment as security for a loan.

Job 22:6

22:6 “For you took pledges ⁸  from your brothers

for no reason,

and you stripped the clothing from the naked. ⁹ 

Job 24:3

24:3 They drive away the orphan’s donkey;

they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.

Job 24:9

24:9 The fatherless child is snatched ¹⁰  from the breast, ¹¹ 

the infant of the poor is taken as a pledge. ¹² 

Amos 2:8

2:8 They stretch out on clothing seized as collateral;

they do so right ¹³  beside every altar!

They drink wine bought with the fines they have levied;

they do so right in the temple ¹⁴  of their God! ¹⁵ 

¹ tn Heb “the wicked one.”

² tn Heb “and in the statutes of life he walks.”

³ tn The construction again uses the infinitive absolute with the verb in the conditional clause to stress the condition.

⁴ tn The clause uses the preposition, the infinitive construct, and the noun that is the subjective genitive – “at the going in of the sun.”

⁵ tn Heb “may not lie down in his pledge.” What is in view is the use of clothing as guarantee for the repayment of loans, a matter already addressed elsewhere (Deut 23:19-20; 24:6; cf. Exod 22:25-26; Lev 25:35-37). Cf. NAB “you shall not sleep in the mantle he gives as a pledge”; NRSV “in the garment given you as the pledge.”

⁶ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation seeks to reflect with “by all means.”

⁷ tn Or “righteous” (so NIV, NLT).

⁸ tn The verb חָבַל (khaval) means “to take pledges.” In this verse Eliphaz says that Job not only took as pledge things the poor need, like clothing, but he did it for no reason.

⁹ tn The “naked” here refers to people who are poorly clothed. Otherwise, a reading like the NIV would be necessary: “you stripped the clothes…[leaving them] naked.” So either he made them naked by stripping their garments off, or they were already in rags.

¹⁰ tn The verb with no expressed subject is here again taken in the passive: “they snatch” becomes “[child] is snatched.”

¹¹ tn This word is usually defined as “violence; ruin.” But elsewhere it does mean “breast” (Isa 60:16; 66:11), and that is certainly what it means here.

¹² tc The MT has a very brief and strange reading: “they take as a pledge upon the poor.” This could be taken as “they take a pledge against the poor” (ESV). Kamphausen suggested that instead of עַל (’al, “against”) one should read עוּל (’ul, “suckling”). This is supported by the parallelism. “They take as pledge” is also made passive here.

¹³ tn The words “They do so right” are supplied twice in the translation of this verse for clarification.

¹⁴ tn Heb “house.”

¹⁵ tn Or “gods.” The Hebrew term אֱלֹהֵיהֶם (’elohehem) may be translated “their gods” (referring to pagan gods), “their god” (referring to a pagan god, cf. NAB, NIV, NLT), or “their God” (referring to the God of Israel, cf. NASB, NRSV).