Exodus 21:20

21:20 “If a man strikes his male servant or his female servant with a staff so that he or she ¹  dies as a result of the blow, ²  he will surely be punished. ³ 

Deuteronomy 16:19

16:19 You must not pervert justice or show favor. Do not take a bribe, for bribes blind the eyes of the wise and distort ⁴  the words of the righteous. ⁵ 

Nehemiah 5:5

5:5 And now, though we share the same flesh and blood as our fellow countrymen, ⁶  and our children are just like their children, ⁷  still we have found it necessary to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. ⁸  Some of our daughters have been subjected to slavery, while we are powerless to help, ⁹  since our fields and vineyards now belong to other people.” ¹⁰ 

Job 31:13-15

31:13 “If I have disregarded the right of my male servants

or my female servants

when they disputed ¹¹  with me,

31:14 then what will I do when God confronts me in judgment; ¹² 

when he intervenes, ¹³ 

how will I respond to him?

31:15 Did not the one who made me in the womb make them? ¹⁴ 

Did not the same one form us in the womb?

Psalms 9:12

9:12 For the one who takes revenge against murderers took notice of the oppressed; ¹⁵ 

he did not overlook ¹⁶  their cry for help ¹⁷ 

Psalms 10:14

10:14 You have taken notice, ¹⁸ 

for ¹⁹  you always see ²⁰  one who inflicts pain and suffering. ²¹ 

The unfortunate victim entrusts his cause to you; ²² 

you deliver ²³  the fatherless. ²⁴ 

Psalms 10:18

10:18 You defend ²⁵  the fatherless and oppressed, ²⁶ 

so that mere mortals may no longer terrorize them. ²⁷ 

Psalms 72:12-14

72:12 For he will rescue the needy ²⁸  when they cry out for help,

and the oppressed ²⁹  who have no defender.

72:13 He will take pity ³⁰  on the poor and needy;

the lives of the needy he will save.

72:14 From harm and violence he will defend them; ³¹ 

he will value their lives. ³² 

Proverbs 22:22-23

22:22 Do not exploit ³³  a poor person because he is poor

and do not crush the needy in court, ³⁴ 

22:23 for the Lord will plead their case ³⁵ 

and will rob those who are robbing ³⁶  them.

Ephesians 6:9

6:9 Masters, ³⁷  treat your slaves ³⁸  the same way, ³⁹  giving up the use of threats, ⁴⁰  because you know that both you and they have the same master in heaven, ⁴¹  and there is no favoritism with him.

Colossians 4:1

4:1 Masters, treat your slaves with justice and fairness, because you know that you also have a master in heaven.

[21:20]  ¹ tn Heb “so that he”; the words “or she” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[21:20]  ² tn Heb “under his hand.”

[21:20]  ³ tn Heb “will be avenged” (how is not specified).

[16:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “twist, overturn”; NRSV “subverts the cause.”

[16:19]  ⁵ tn Or “innocent”; NRSV “those who are in the right”; NLT “the godly.”

[5:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “according to the flesh of our brothers is our flesh.”

[5:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “like their children, our children.”

[5:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “to become slaves” (also later in this verse).

[5:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “there is not power for our hand.” The Hebrew expression used here is rather difficult.

[5:5]  ¹⁰ sn The poor among the returned exiles were being exploited by their rich countrymen. Moneylenders were loaning large amounts of money, and not only collecting interest on loans which was illegal (Lev 25:36-37; Deut 23:19-20), but also seizing pledges as collateral (Neh 5:3) which was allowed (Deut 24:10). When the debtors missed a payment, the moneylenders would seize their collateral: their fields, vineyards and homes. With no other means of income, the debtors were forced to sell their children into slavery, a common practice at this time (Neh 5:5). Nehemiah himself was one of the moneylenders (Neh 5:10), but he insisted that seizure of collateral from fellow Jewish countrymen was ethically wrong (Neh 5:9).

[31:13]  ¹¹ tn This construction is an adverbial clause using the temporal preposition, the infinitive from רִיב (riv, “contend”), and the suffix which is the subjective genitive.

[31:14]  ¹² tn Heb “arises.” The LXX reads “takes vengeance,” an interpretation that is somewhat correct but unnecessary. The verb “to rise” would mean “to confront in judgment.”

[31:14]  ¹³ tn The verb פָקַד (paqad) means “to visit,” but with God as the subject it means any divine intervention for blessing or cursing, anything God does that changes a person’s life. Here it is “visit to judge.”

[31:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “him,” but the plural pronoun has been used in the translation to indicate that the referent is the servants mentioned in v. 13 (since the previous “him” in v. 14 refers to God).

[9:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “for the one who seeks shed blood remembered them.” The idiomatic expression “to seek shed blood” seems to carry the idea “to seek payment/restitution for one’s shed blood.” The plural form דָּמִים (damim, “shed blood”) occurs only here as the object of דָּרַשׁ (darash); the singular form דָּם (dam, “blood”) appears with the verb in Gen 9:5; 42:22; Ezek 33:6. “Them,” the pronominal object of the verb “remembered,” refers to the oppressed, mentioned specifically in the next line, so the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “did not forget.”

[9:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the cry for help of the oppressed.” In this context the “oppressed” are the psalmist and those he represents, whom the hostile nations have threatened.

[10:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “you see.” One could translate the perfect as generalizing, “you do take notice.”

[10:14]  ¹⁹ tn If the preceding perfect is taken as generalizing, then one might understand כִּי (ki) as asseverative: “indeed, certainly.”

[10:14]  ²⁰ tn Here the imperfect emphasizes God’s typical behavior.

[10:14]  ²¹ tn Heb “destruction and suffering,” which here refers metonymically to the wicked, who dish out pain and suffering to their victims.

[10:14]  ²² 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]  ²³ tn Or “help.”

[10:14]  ²⁴ 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).

[10:18]  ²⁵ tn Heb “to judge (on behalf of),” or “by judging (on behalf of).”

[10:18]  ²⁶ tn Heb “crushed.” See v. 10.

[10:18]  ²⁷ 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.

[72:12]  ²⁸ tn The singular is representative. The typical needy individual here represents the entire group.

[72:12]  ²⁹ tn The singular is representative. The typical oppressed individual here represents the entire group.

[72:13]  ³⁰ tn The prefixed verb form is best understood as a defectively written imperfect (see Deut 7:16).

[72:14]  ³¹ tn Or “redeem their lives.” The verb “redeem” casts the Lord in the role of a leader who protects members of his extended family in times of need and crisis (see Pss 19:14; 69:18).

[72:14]  ³² tn Heb “their blood will be precious in his eyes.”

[22:22]  ³³ tn Two negated jussives form the instruction here: אַל־תִּגְזָל (’al-tigzal, “do not exploit”) and וְאַל־תְּדַכֵּא (ve’al-tÿdakke’, “do not crush”).

[22:22]  ³⁴ tn Heb “in the gate” (so KJV); NAB, NASB, NRSV “at the gate.” The “gate” of the city was the center of activity, the place of business as well as the place for settling legal disputes. The language of the next verse suggests a legal setting, so “court” is an appropriate translation here.

[22:23]  ³⁵ tn The construction uses the verb יָרִיב (yariv) with its cognate accusative. It can mean “to strive,” but here it probably means “to argue a case, plead a case” (cf. KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV). How the Lord will do this is not specified – either through righteous people or by direct intervention.

[22:23]  ³⁶ tn The verb קָבַע (qava’, “to rob; to spoil; to plunder”) is used here in both places to reflect the principle of talionic justice. What the oppressors did to the poor will be turned back on them by the Lord.

[6:9]  ³⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[6:9]  ³⁸ tn Though the Greek text only has αὐτούς (autous, “them”), the antecedent is the slaves of the masters. Therefore, it was translated this way to make it explicit in English.

[6:9]  ³⁹ tn Grk “do the same things to them.”

[6:9]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “giving up the threat.”

[6:9]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “because of both they and you, the Lord is, in heaven…”