Job 22:6-9

22:6 “For you took pledges ¹  from your brothers

for no reason,

and you stripped the clothing from the naked. ² 

22:7 You gave the weary ³  no water to drink

and from the hungry you withheld food.

22:8 Although you were a powerful man, ⁴  owning land, ⁵ 

an honored man ⁶  living on it, ⁷ 

22:9 you sent widows away empty-handed,

and the arms ⁸  of the orphans you crushed. ⁹ 

Job 31:16-17

31:16 If I have refused to give the poor what they desired, ¹⁰ 

or caused the eyes of the widow to fail,

31:17 If I ate my morsel of bread myself,

and did not share any of it with orphans ¹¹  –

Deuteronomy 24:6

24:6 One must not take either lower or upper millstones as security on a loan, for that is like taking a life itself as security. ¹² 

Deuteronomy 24:10-13

24:10 When you make any kind of loan to your neighbor, you may not go into his house to claim what he is offering as security. ¹³  24:11 You must stand outside and the person to whom you are making the loan will bring out to you what he is offering as security. ¹⁴  24:12 If the person is poor you may not use what he gives you as security for a covering. ¹⁵  24:13 You must by all means ¹⁶  return to him at sunset the item he gave you as security so that he may sleep in his outer garment and bless you for it; it will be considered a just ¹⁷  deed by the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 24:17-21

24:17 You must not pervert justice due a resident foreigner or an orphan, or take a widow’s garment as security for a loan. 24:18 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do all this. 24:19 Whenever you reap your harvest in your field and leave some unraked grain there, ¹⁸  you must not return to get it; it should go to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow so that the Lord your God may bless all the work you do. ¹⁹  24:20 When you beat your olive tree you must not repeat the procedure; ²⁰  the remaining olives belong to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow. 24:21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard you must not do so a second time; ²¹  they should go to the resident foreigner, orphan, and widow.

Deuteronomy 24:1

24:1 If a man marries a woman and she does not please him because he has found something offensive ²²  in her, then he may draw up a divorce document, give it to her, and evict her from his house.

Deuteronomy 12:3

12:3 You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, ²³  burn up their sacred Asherah poles, ²⁴  and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place.

[22:6]  ¹ tn The verb חָבַל (khaval) means “to take pledges.” In this verse Eliphaz says that Job not only took as pledge things the poor need, like clothing, but he did it for no reason.

[22:6]  ² tn The “naked” here refers to people who are poorly clothed. Otherwise, a reading like the NIV would be necessary: “you stripped the clothes…[leaving them] naked.” So either he made them naked by stripping their garments off, or they were already in rags.

[22:7]  ³ tn The term עָיֵף (’ayef) can be translated “weary,” “faint,” “exhausted,” or “tired.” Here it may refer to the fainting because of thirst – that would make a good parallel to the second part.

[22:8]  ⁴ 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).

[22:8]  ⁵ 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.

[22:8]  ⁶ 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.

[22:8]  ⁷ 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.

[22:9]  ⁸ tn The “arms of the orphans” are their helps or rights on which they depended for support.

[22:9]  ⁹ 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.

[31:16]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “kept the poor from [their] desire.”

[31:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and an orphan did not eat from it.”

[24:6]  ¹² sn Taking millstones as security on a loan would amount to taking the owner’s own life in pledge, since the millstones were the owner’s means of earning a living and supporting his family.

[24:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “his pledge.” This refers to something offered as pledge of repayment, i.e., as security for the debt.

[24:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “his pledge.”

[24:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “may not lie down in his pledge.” What is in view is the use of clothing as guarantee for the repayment of loans, a matter already addressed elsewhere (Deut 23:19-20; 24:6; cf. Exod 22:25-26; Lev 25:35-37). Cf. NAB “you shall not sleep in the mantle he gives as a pledge”; NRSV “in the garment given you as the pledge.”

[24:13]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation seeks to reflect with “by all means.”

[24:13]  ¹⁷ tn Or “righteous” (so NIV, NLT).

[24:19]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “in the field.”

[24:19]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “of your hands.” This law was later applied in the story of Ruth who, as a poor widow, was allowed by generous Boaz to glean in his fields (Ruth 2:1-13).

[24:20]  ²⁰ tn Heb “knock down after you.”

[24:21]  ²¹ tn Heb “glean after you.”

[24:1]  ²² tn Heb “nakedness of a thing.” The Hebrew phrase עֶרְוַת דָּבָר (’ervat davar) refers here to some gross sexual impropriety (see note on “indecent” in Deut 23:14). Though the term usually has to do only with indecent exposure of the genitals, it can also include such behavior as adultery (cf. Lev 18:6-18; 20:11, 17, 20-21; Ezek 22:10; 23:29; Hos 2:10).

[12:3]  ²³ sn Sacred pillars. These are the stelae (stone pillars; the Hebrew term is מַצֵּבֹת, matsevot) associated with Baal worship, perhaps to mark a spot hallowed by an alleged visitation of the gods. See also Deut 7:5.

[12:3]  ²⁴ sn Sacred Asherah poles. The Hebrew term (plural) is אֲשֵׁרִים (’asherim). See note on the word “(leafy) tree” in v. 2, and also Deut 7:5.