22:8 Although you were a powerful man, 1 owning land, 2
an honored man 3 living on it, 4
22:9 you sent widows away empty-handed,
and the arms 5 of the orphans you crushed. 6
1 tn The idiom is “a man of arm” (= “powerful”; see Ps 10:15). This is in comparison to the next line, “man of face” (= “dignity; high rank”; see Isa 3:5).
2 tn Heb “and a man of arm, to whom [was] land.” The line is in contrast to the preceding one, and so the vav here introduces a concessive clause.
3 tn The expression is unusual: “the one lifted up of face.” This is the “honored one,” the one to whom the dignity will be given.
4 tn Many commentators simply delete the verse or move it elsewhere. Most take it as a general reference to Job, perhaps in apposition to the preceding verse.
5 tn The “arms of the orphans” are their helps or rights on which they depended for support.
6 tn The verb in the text is Pual: יְדֻכָּא (yÿdukka’, “was [were] crushed”). GKC 388 §121.b would explain “arms” as the complement of a passive imperfect. But if that is too difficult, then a change to Piel imperfect, second person, will solve the difficulty. In its favor is the parallelism, the use of the second person all throughout the section, and the reading in all the versions. The versions may have simply assumed the easier reading, however.