Job 20:19

20:19 For he has oppressed the poor and abandoned them; ¹ 

he has seized a house which he did not build. ² 

Job 22:9

22:9 you sent widows away empty-handed,

and the arms ³  of the orphans you crushed. ⁴ 

Job 24:2-12

24:2 Men ⁵  move boundary stones;

they seize the flock and pasture them. ⁶ 

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

they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.

24:4 They turn the needy from the pathway,

and the poor of the land hide themselves together. ⁷ 

24:5 Like ⁸  wild donkeys in the desert

they ⁹  go out to their labor, ¹⁰ 

seeking diligently for food;

the wasteland provides ¹¹  food for them

and for their children.

24:6 They reap fodder ¹²  in the field,

and glean ¹³  in the vineyard of the wicked.

24:7 They spend the night naked because they lack clothing;

they have no covering against the cold.

24:8 They are soaked by mountain rains

and huddle ¹⁴  in the rocks because they lack shelter.

24:9 The fatherless child is snatched ¹⁵  from the breast, ¹⁶ 

the infant of the poor is taken as a pledge. ¹⁷ 

24:10 They go about naked, without clothing,

and go hungry while they carry the sheaves. ¹⁸ 

24:11 They press out the olive oil between the rows of olive trees; ¹⁹ 

they tread the winepresses while they are thirsty. ²⁰ 

24:12 From the city the dying ²¹  groan,

and the wounded ²²  cry out for help,

but God charges no one with wrongdoing. ²³ 

Micah 2:1-2

Land Robbers Will Lose their Land

2:1 Those who devise sinful plans are as good as dead, ²⁴ 

those who dream about doing evil as they lie in bed. ²⁵ 

As soon as morning dawns they carry out their plans, ²⁶ 

because they have the power to do so.

2:2 They confiscate the fields they desire,

and seize the houses they want. ²⁷ 

They defraud people of their homes, ²⁸ 

and deprive people of the land they have inherited. ²⁹ 

Micah 2:9

2:9 You wrongly evict widows ³⁰  among my people from their cherished homes.

You defraud their children ³¹  of their prized inheritance. ³² 

[20:19]  ¹ tc The verb indicates that after he oppressed the poor he abandoned them to their fate. But there have been several attempts to improve on the text. Several have repointed the text to get a word parallel to “house.” Ehrlich came up with עֹזֵב (’ozev, “mud hut”), Kissane had “hovel” (similar to Neh 3:8). M. Dahood did the same (“The Root ’zb II in Job,” JBL 78 [1959]: 306-7). J. Reider came up with עֶזֶב (’ezev, the “leavings”), what the rich were to leave for the poor (“Contributions to the Scriptural text,” HUCA 24 [1952/53]: 103-6). But an additional root עָזַב (’azav) is questionable. And while the text as it stands is general and not very striking, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Dhorme reverses the letters to gain בְּעֹז (bÿ’oz, “with force [or violence]”).

[20:19]  ² tn The last clause says, “and he did not build it.” This can be understood in an adverbial sense, supplying the relative pronoun to the translation.

[22:9]  ³ tn The “arms of the orphans” are their helps or rights on which they depended for support.

[22:9]  ⁴ 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.

[24:2]  ⁵ tn The line is short: “they move boundary stones.” So some commentators have supplied a subject, such as “wicked men.” The reason for its being wicked men is that to move the boundary stone was to encroach dishonestly on the lands of others (Deut 19:14; 27:17).

[24:2]  ⁶ tc The LXX reads “and their shepherd.” Many commentators accept this reading. But the MT says that they graze the flocks that they have stolen. The difficulty with the MT reading is that there is no suffix on the final verb – but that is not an insurmountable difference.

[24:4]  ⁷ sn Because of the violence and oppression of the wicked, the poor and needy, the widows and orphans, all are deprived of their rights and forced out of the ways and into hiding just to survive.

[24:5]  ⁸ tc The verse begins with הֵן (hen); but the LXX, Vulgate, and Syriac all have “like.” R. Gordis (Job, 265) takes הֵן (hen) as a pronoun “they” and supplies the comparative. The sense of the verse is clear in either case.

[24:5]  ⁹ tn That is, “the poor.”

[24:5]  ¹⁰ tc The MT has “in the working/labor of them,” or “when they labor.” Some commentators simply omit these words. Dhorme retains them and moves them to go with עֲרָבָה (’aravah), which he takes to mean “evening”; this gives a clause, “although they work until the evening.” Then, with many others, he takes לוֹ (lo) to be a negative and finishes the verse with “no food for the children.” Others make fewer changes in the text, and as a result do not come out with such a hopeless picture – there is some food found. The point is that they spend their time foraging for food, and they find just enough to survive, but it is a day-long activity. For Job, this shows how unrighteous the administration of the world actually is.

[24:5]  ¹¹ tn The verb is not included in the Hebrew text but is supplied in the translation.

[24:6]  ¹² tc The word בְּלִילוֹ (bÿlilo) means “his fodder.” It is unclear to what this refers. If the suffix is taken as a collective, then it can be translated “they gather/reap their fodder.” The early versions all have “they reap in a field which is not his” (taking it as בְּלִי לוֹ, bÿli lo). A conjectural emendation would change the word to בַּלַּיְלָה (ballaylah, “in the night”). But there is no reason for this.

[24:6]  ¹³ tn The verbs in this verse are uncertain. In the first line “reap” is used, and that would be the work of a hired man (and certainly not done at night). The meaning of this second verb is uncertain; it has been taken to mean “glean,” which would be the task of the poor.

[24:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “embrace” or “hug.”

[24:9]  ¹⁵ tn The verb with no expressed subject is here again taken in the passive: “they snatch” becomes “[child] is snatched.”

[24:9]  ¹⁶ 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.

[24:9]  ¹⁷ 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.

[24:10]  ¹⁸ sn The point should not be missed – amidst abundant harvests, carrying sheaves about, they are still going hungry.

[24:11]  ¹⁹ tc The Hebrew term is שׁוּרֹתָם (shurotam), which may be translated “terraces” or “olive rows.” But that would not be the proper place to have a press to press the olives and make oil. E. Dhorme (Job, 360-61) proposes on the analogy of an Arabic word that this should be read as “millstones” (which he would also write in the dual). But the argument does not come from a clean cognate, but from a possible development of words. The meaning of “olive rows” works well enough.

[24:11]  ²⁰ tn The final verb, a preterite with the ו (vav) consecutive, is here interpreted as a circumstantial clause.

[24:12]  ²¹ tc The MT as pointed reads “from the city of men they groan.” Most commentators change one vowel in מְתִים (mÿtim) to get מֵתִים (metim) to get the active participle, “the dying.” This certainly fits the parallelism better, although sense could be made out of the MT.

[24:12]  ²² tn Heb “the souls of the wounded,” which here refers to the wounded themselves.

[24:12]  ²³ tc The MT has the noun תִּפְלָה (tiflah) which means “folly; tastelessness” (cf. 1:22). The verb, which normally means “to place; to put,” would then be rendered “to impute; to charge.” This is certainly a workable translation in the context. Many commentators have emended the text, changing the noun to תְּפִלָּה (tÿfillah, “prayer”), and so then also the verb יָשִׂים (yasim, here “charges”) to יִשְׁמַע (yishma’, “hears”). It reads: “But God does not hear the prayer” – referring to the groans.

[2:1]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Woe to those who plan sin.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “woe”; “ah”) was a cry used in mourning the dead.

[2:1]  ²⁵ tn Heb “those who do evil upon their beds.”

[2:1]  ²⁶ tn Heb “at the light of morning they do it.”

[2:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “they desire fields and rob [them], and houses and take [them] away.”

[2:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and they oppress a man and his home.”

[2:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and a man and his inheritance.” The verb עָשַׁק (’ashaq, “to oppress”; “to wrong”) does double duty in the parallel structure and is understood by ellipsis in the second line.

[2:9]  ³⁰ tn Heb “women.” This may be a synecdoche of the whole (women) for the part (widows).

[2:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “her little children” or “her infants”; ASV, NRSV “young children.”

[2:9]  ³² tn Heb “from their children you take my glory forever.” The yod (י) ending on הֲדָרִי (hadariy) is usually taken as a first person common singular suffix (“my glory”). But it may be the archaic genitive ending (“glory of”) in the construct expression “glory of perpetuity,” that is, “perpetual glory.” In either case, this probably refers to the dignity or honor the Lord bestowed on each Israelite family by giving them a share of his land to be inherited perpetually from one generation to another within each family. The term הָדָר (hadar) may refer to possessions that a person prizes (Lam 1:6).