Exodus 22:22-24

22:22 “You must not afflict ¹  any widow or orphan. 22:23 If you afflict them ²  in any way ³  and they cry to me, I will surely hear ⁴  their cry, 22:24 and my anger will burn and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives will be widows and your children will be fatherless. ⁵ 

Psalms 10:14

10:14 You have taken notice, ⁶ 

for ⁷  you always see ⁸  one who inflicts pain and suffering. ⁹ 

The unfortunate victim entrusts his cause to you; ¹⁰ 

you deliver ¹¹  the fatherless. ¹² 

Psalms 68:5

68:5 He is a father to the fatherless

and an advocate for widows. ¹³ 

God rules from his holy palace. ¹⁴ 

Psalms 146:9

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

he lifts up the fatherless and the widow, ¹⁵ 

but he opposes the wicked. ¹⁶ 

Proverbs 23:10-11

23:10 Do not move an ancient boundary stone,

or take over ¹⁷  the fields of the fatherless,

23:11 for their Protector ¹⁸  is strong;

he will plead their case against you. ¹⁹ 

John 14:18

14:18 “I will not abandon ²⁰  you as orphans, ²¹  I will come to you. ²² 

[22:22]  ¹ tn The verb “afflict” is a Piel imperfect from עָנָה (’anah); it has a wide range of meanings: “afflict, oppress, humiliate, rape.” These victims are at the mercy of the judges, businessmen, or villains. The righteous king and the righteous people will not mistreat them (see Isa 1:17; Job 31:16, 17, 21).

[22:23]  ² tn The accusative here is the masculine singular pronoun, which leads S. R. Driver to conclude that this line is out of place, even though the masculine singular can be used in places like this (Exodus, 232). U. Cassuto says its use is to refer to certain classes (Exodus, 292).

[22:23]  ³ tn Here again and with “cry” the infinitive absolute functions with a diminished emphasis (GKC 342-43 §113.o).

[22:23]  ⁴ tn Here is the normal use of the infinitive absolute with the imperfect tense to emphasize the verb: “I will surely hear,” implying, “I will surely respond.”

[22:24]  ⁵ sn The punishment will follow the form of talionic justice, an eye for an eye, in which the punishment matches the crime. God will use invading armies (“sword” is a metonymy of adjunct here) to destroy them, making their wives widows and their children orphans.

[10:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “you see.” One could translate the perfect as generalizing, “you do take notice.”

[10:14]  ⁷ tn If the preceding perfect is taken as generalizing, then one might understand כִּי (ki) as asseverative: “indeed, certainly.”

[10:14]  ⁸ tn Here the imperfect emphasizes God’s typical behavior.

[10:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “destruction and suffering,” which here refers metonymically to the wicked, who dish out pain and suffering to their victims.

[10:14]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn Or “help.”

[10:14]  ¹² 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).

[68:5]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “God [is] in his holy dwelling place.” He occupies his throne and carries out his royal responsibilities.

[146:9]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn Or “encroach on” (NIV, NRSV); Heb “go into.”

[23:11]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ 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).

[14:18]  ²⁰ tn Or “leave.”

[14:18]  ²¹ tn The entire phrase “abandon you as orphans” could be understood as an idiom meaning, “leave you helpless.”

[14:18]  ²² sn I will come to you. Jesus had spoken in 14:3 of going away and coming again to his disciples. There the reference was both to the parousia (the second coming of Christ) and to the postresurrection appearances of Jesus to the disciples. Here the postresurrection appearances are primarily in view, since Jesus speaks of the disciples “seeing” him after the world can “see” him no longer in the following verse. But many commentators have taken v. 18 as a reference to the coming of the Spirit, since this has been the topic of the preceding verses. Still, vv. 19-20 appear to contain references to Jesus’ appearances to the disciples after his resurrection. It may well be that another Johannine double meaning is found here, so that Jesus ‘returns’ to his disciples in one sense in his appearances to them after his resurrection, but in another sense he ‘returns’ in the person of the Holy Spirit to indwell them.