Deuteronomy 10:18

10:18 who justly treats ¹  the orphan and widow, and who loves resident foreigners, giving them food and clothing.

Psalms 10:14-18

10:14 You have taken notice, ² 

for ³  you always see ⁴  one who inflicts pain and suffering. ⁵ 

The unfortunate victim entrusts his cause to you; ⁶ 

you deliver ⁷  the fatherless. ⁸ 

10:15 Break the arm ⁹  of the wicked and evil man!

Hold him accountable for his wicked deeds, ¹⁰ 

which he thought you would not discover. ¹¹ 

10:16 The Lord rules forever! ¹² 

The nations are driven out of his land. ¹³ 

10:17 Lord, you have heard ¹⁴  the request ¹⁵  of the oppressed;

you make them feel secure because you listen to their prayer. ¹⁶ 

10:18 You defend ¹⁷  the fatherless and oppressed, ¹⁸ 

so that mere mortals may no longer terrorize them. ¹⁹ 

Psalms 68:5

68:5 He is a father to the fatherless

and an advocate for widows. ²⁰ 

God rules from his holy palace. ²¹ 

Psalms 82:3

82:3 Defend the cause of the poor and the fatherless! ²² 

Vindicate the oppressed and suffering!

Psalms 146:9

146:9 The Lord protects those residing outside their native land;

he lifts up the fatherless and the widow, ²³ 

but he opposes the wicked. ²⁴ 

Proverbs 23:10-11

23:10 Do not move an ancient boundary stone,

or take over ²⁵  the fields of the fatherless,

23:11 for their Protector ²⁶  is strong;

he will plead their case against you. ²⁷ 

Hosea 14:3

14:3 Assyria cannot save us;

we will not ride warhorses.

We will never again say, ‘Our gods’

to what our own hands have made.

For only you will show compassion to Orphan Israel!” ²⁸ 

Jonah 4:11

4:11 Should I ²⁹  not be even more ³⁰  concerned ³¹  about Nineveh, this enormous city? ³²  There are more than one hundred twenty thousand people in it who do not know right from wrong, ³³  as well as many animals!” ³⁴ 

Malachi 3:5

3:5 “I ³⁵  will come to you in judgment. I will be quick to testify against those who practice divination, those who commit adultery, those who break promises, ³⁶  and those who exploit workers, widows, and orphans, ³⁷  who refuse to help ³⁸  the immigrant ³⁹  and in this way show they do not fear me,” says the Lord who rules over all.

James 1:27

1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before ⁴⁰  God the Father ⁴¹  is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

[10:18]  ¹ tn Or “who executes justice for” (so NAB, NRSV); NLT “gives justice to.”

[10:14]  ² tn Heb “you see.” One could translate the perfect as generalizing, “you do take notice.”

[10:14]  ³ tn If the preceding perfect is taken as generalizing, then one might understand כִּי (ki) as asseverative: “indeed, certainly.”

[10:14]  ⁴ tn Here the imperfect emphasizes God’s typical behavior.

[10:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “destruction and suffering,” which here refers metonymically to the wicked, who dish out pain and suffering to their victims.

[10:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “to give into your hand, upon you, he abandons, [the] unfortunate [one].” The syntax is awkward and the meaning unclear. It is uncertain who or what is being given into God’s hand. Elsewhere the idiom “give into the hand” means to deliver into one’s possession. If “to give” goes with what precedes (as the accentuation of the Hebrew text suggests), then this may refer to the wicked man being delivered over to God for judgment. The present translation assumes that “to give” goes with what follows (cf. NEB, NIV, NRSV). The verb יַעֲזֹב (ya’azov) here has the nuance “entrust” (see Gen 39:6; Job 39:11); the direct object (“[his] cause”) is implied.

[10:14]  ⁷ tn Or “help.”

[10:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “[for] one who is fatherless, you are a deliverer.” The noun יָתוֹם (yatom) refers to one who has lost his father (not necessarily his mother, see Ps 109:9).

[10:15]  ⁹ sn The arm symbolizes the strength of the wicked, which they use to oppress and exploit the weak.

[10:15]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “you seek his wickedness.” As in v. 13, the verb דָרַשׁ (darash, “seek”) is used here in the sense of “seek an accounting.” One could understand the imperfect as describing a fact, “you hold him accountable,” or as anticipating divine judgment, “you will hold him accountable.” However, since the verb is in apparent parallelism with the preceding imperative (“break”), it is better to understand the imperfect as expressing the psalmist’s desire or request.

[10:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “you will not find.” It is uncertain how this statement relates to what precedes. Some take בַל (bal), which is used as a negative particle in vv. 4, 6, 11, 18, as asseverative here, “Indeed find (i.e., judge his wickedness).” The translation assumes that the final words are an asyndetic relative clause which refers back to what the wicked man boasted in God’s face (“you will not find [i.e., my wickedness]”). See v. 13.

[10:16]  ¹² tn Heb “the Lord is king forever and ever.”

[10:16]  ¹³ tn Or “the nations perish from his land.” The perfect verb form may express what is typical or it may express rhetorically the psalmist’s certitude that God’s deliverance is “as good as done.”

[10:17]  ¹⁴ sn You have heard. The psalmist is confident that God has responded positively to his earlier petitions for divine intervention. The psalmist apparently prayed the words of vv. 16-18 after the reception of an oracle of deliverance (given in response to the confident petition of vv. 12-15) or after the Lord actually delivered him from his enemies.

[10:17]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “desire.”

[10:17]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “you make firm their heart, you cause your ear to listen.”

[10:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “to judge (on behalf of),” or “by judging (on behalf of).”

[10:18]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “crushed.” See v. 10.

[10:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “he will not add again [i.e., “he will no longer”] to terrify, man from the earth.” The Hebrew term אֱנוֹשׁ (’enosh, “man”) refers here to the wicked nations (v. 16). By describing them as “from the earth,” the psalmist emphasizes their weakness before the sovereign, eternal king.

[68:5]  ²⁰ sn God is depicted here as a just ruler. In the ancient Near Eastern world a king was responsible for promoting justice, including caring for the weak and vulnerable, epitomized by the fatherless and widows.

[68:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “God [is] in his holy dwelling place.” He occupies his throne and carries out his royal responsibilities.

[82:3]  ²² tn The Hebrew noun יָתוֹם (yatom) refers to one who has lost his father (not necessarily his mother, see Ps 109:9). Because they were so vulnerable and were frequently exploited, fatherless children are often mentioned as epitomizing the oppressed (see Pss 10:14; 68:5; 94:6; 146:9; as well as Job 6:27; 22:9; 24:3, 9; 29:12; 31:17, 21).

[146:9]  ²³ sn God is depicted here as a just ruler. In the ancient Near Eastern world a king was responsible for promoting justice, including caring for the weak and vulnerable, epitomized by resident aliens, the fatherless, and widows.

[146:9]  ²⁴ tn Heb “he makes the way of the wicked twisted.” The “way of the wicked” probably refers to their course of life (see Prov 4:19; Jer 12:1). God makes their path tortuous in the sense that he makes them pay the harmful consequences of their actions.

[23:10]  ²⁵ tn Or “encroach on” (NIV, NRSV); Heb “go into.”

[23:11]  ²⁶ tn The participle גֹּאֵל (go’el) describes a “kinsman redeemer.” Some English versions explicitly cite “God” (e.g., NCV, CEV) or “the Lord” (e.g. TEV).

[23:11]  ²⁷ sn This is the tenth saying; once again there is a warning not to encroach on other people’s rights and property, especially the defenseless (see v. 10; 22:22-23, 28).

[14:3]  ²⁸ tn Heb “For the orphan is shown compassion by you.” The present translation takes “orphan” as a figurative reference to Israel, which is specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:11]  ²⁹ tn The emphatic use of the independent pronouns “you” and “I” (אַתָּה, ’attah, and אֲנִי, ’ani) in vv. 10 and 11 creates an ironic comparison and emphasizes the strong contrast between the attitudes of Jonah and the Lord.

[4:11]  ³⁰ tn Heb “You…Should I not spare…?” This is an a fortiori argument from lesser to greater. Since Jonah was “upset” (חוּס, khus) about such a trivial matter as the death of a little plant (the lesser), God had every right to “spare” (חוּס) the enormously populated city of Nineveh (the greater). The phrase “even more” does not appear in Hebrew but is implied by this a fortiori argument.

[4:11]  ³¹ tn Heb “Should I not spare?”; or “Should I not show compassion?” The verb חוּס (khus) has a basic three-fold range of meanings: (1) “to be troubled about,” (2) “to look with compassion upon,” and (3) “to show pity, to spare (someone from death/judgment)” (HALOT 298 s.v. חוס; BDB 299 s.v. חוּס). In v. 10 it refers to Jonah’s lament over the death of his plant, meaning “to be upset about” or “to be troubled about” (HALOT 298 s.v. 1.c). However, here in v. 11 it means “to show pity, spare” from judgment (BDB 298 s.v. b; HALOT 298 s.v. 1.a; e.g., 1 Sam 24:11; Jer 21:7; Ezek 24:14). It is often used in contexts which contemplate whether God will or will not spare a sinful people from judgment (Ezek 5:11; 7:4, 9; 8:19; 9:5, 10; 20:17). So this repetition of the same verb but in a different sense creates a polysemantic wordplay in vv. 10-11. However, the wordplay is obscured by the appropriate translation for each usage – “be upset about” in v. 10 and “to spare” in v. 11 – therefore, the translation above attempts to bring out the wordplay in English: “to be [even more] concerned about.”

[4:11]  ³² tn Heb “the great city.”

[4:11]  ³³ tn Heb “their right from their left.” Interpreters wonder exactly what deficiency is meant by the phrase “do not know their right from their left.” The expression does not appear elsewhere in biblical Hebrew. It probably does not mean, as sometimes suggested, that Nineveh had 120,000 small children (the term אָדָם, ’adam, “people,” does not seem to be used of children alone). In any case, it refers to a deficiency in discernment that Jonah and the initial readers of Jonah would no doubt have considered themselves free of. For partial parallels see 2 Sam 19:35; Eccl 10:2; Ezek 22:26; 44:23.

[4:11]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and many animals.”

[3:5]  ³⁵ tn The first person pronoun (a reference to the Lord) indicates that the Lord himself now speaks (see also v. 1). The prophet speaks in vv. 2-4 (see also 2:17).

[3:5]  ³⁶ tn Heb “those who swear [oaths] falsely.” Cf. NIV “perjurers”; TEV “those who give false testimony”; NLT “liars.”

[3:5]  ³⁷ tn Heb “and against the oppressors of the worker for a wage, [the] widow and orphan.”

[3:5]  ³⁸ tn Heb “those who turn aside.”

[3:5]  ³⁹ tn Or “resident foreigner”; NIV “aliens”; NRSV “the alien.”

[1:27]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “in the sight of”; Grk “with.”

[1:27]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “the God and Father.”