Job 22:9-10

22:9 you sent widows away empty-handed,

and the arms ¹  of the orphans you crushed. ² 

22:10 That is why snares surround you,

and why sudden fear terrifies you,

Job 24:12

24:12 From the city the dying ³  groan,

and the wounded ⁴  cry out for help,

but God charges no one with wrongdoing. ⁵ 

Job 29:12-13

29:12 for I rescued the poor who cried out for help,

and the orphan who ⁶  had no one to assist him;

29:13 the blessing of the dying man descended on me, ⁷ 

and I made the widow’s heart rejoice; ⁸ 

Job 31:19-20

31:19 If I have seen anyone about to perish for lack of clothing,

or a poor man without a coat,

31:20 whose heart did not bless me ⁹ 

as he warmed himself with the fleece of my sheep, ¹⁰ 

Job 35:9

35:9 “People ¹¹  cry out

because of the excess of oppression; ¹² 

they cry out for help

because of the power ¹³  of the mighty. ¹⁴ 

Exodus 2:23-24

The Call of the Deliverer

2:23 ¹⁵ During ¹⁶  that long period of time ¹⁷  the king of Egypt died, and the Israelites ¹⁸  groaned because of the slave labor. They cried out, and their desperate cry ¹⁹  because of their slave labor went up to God. 2:24 God heard their groaning, ²⁰  God remembered ²¹  his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob,

Exodus 3:7

3:7 The Lord said, “I have surely seen ²²  the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. ²³ 

Exodus 3:9

3:9 And now indeed ²⁴  the cry ²⁵  of the Israelites has come to me, and I have also seen how severely the Egyptians oppress them. ²⁶ 

Psalms 12:5

12:5 “Because of the violence done to the oppressed, ²⁷ 

because of the painful cries ²⁸  of the needy,

I will spring into action,” ²⁹  says the Lord.

“I will provide the safety they so desperately desire.” ³⁰ 

Isaiah 5:7

5:7 Indeed ³¹  Israel ³²  is the vineyard of the Lord who commands armies,

the people ³³  of Judah are the cultivated place in which he took delight.

He waited for justice, but look what he got – disobedience! ³⁴ 

He waited for fairness, but look what he got – cries for help! ³⁵ 

James 5:4

5:4 Look, the pay you have held back from the workers who mowed your fields cries out against you, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

[22:9]  ¹ tn The “arms of the orphans” are their helps or rights on which they depended for support.

[22:9]  ² 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.

[24:12]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “the souls of the wounded,” which here refers to the wounded themselves.

[24:12]  ⁵ 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.

[29:12]  ⁶ tn The negative introduces a clause that serves as a negative attribute; literally the following clause says, “and had no helper” (see GKC 482 §152.u).

[29:13]  ⁷ tn The verb is simply בּוֹא (bo’, “to come; to enter”). With the preposition עַל (’al, “upon”) it could mean “came to me,” or “came upon me,” i.e., descended (see R. Gordis, Job, 320).

[29:13]  ⁸ tn The verb אַרְנִן (’arnin) is from רָנַן (ranan, “to give a ringing cry”) but here “cause to give a ringing cry,” i.e., shout of joy. The rejoicing envisioned in this word is far greater than what the words “sing” or “rejoice” suggest.

[31:20]  ⁹ tn The MT has simply “if his loins did not bless me.” In the conditional clause this is another protasis. It means, “if I saw someone dying and if he did not thank me for clothing them.” It is Job’s way of saying that whenever he saw a need he met it, and he received his share of thanks – which prove his kindness. G. R. Driver has it “without his loins having blessed me,” taking “If…not” as an Aramaism, meaning “except” (AJSL 52 [1935/36]: 164f.).

[31:20]  ¹⁰ tn This clause is interpreted here as a subordinate clause to the first half of the verse. It could also be a separate clause: “was he not warmed…?”

[35:9]  ¹¹ tn The word “people” is supplied, because the sentence only has the masculine plural verb.

[35:9]  ¹² tn The final noun is an abstract plural, “oppression.” There is no reason to change it to “oppressors” to fit the early versions. The expression is literally “multitude of oppression.”

[35:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “the arm,” a metaphor for strength or power.

[35:9]  ¹⁴ tn Or “of the many” (see HALOT 1172 s.v. I רַב 6.a).

[2:23]  ¹⁵ sn The next section of the book is often referred to as the “Call of Moses,” and that is certainly true. But it is much more than that. It is the divine preparation of the servant of God, a servant who already knew what his destiny was. In this section Moses is shown how his destiny will be accomplished. It will be accomplished because the divine presence will guarantee the power, and the promise of that presence comes with the important “I AM” revelation. The message that comes through in this, and other “I will be with you” passages, is that when the promise of God’s presence is correctly appropriated by faith, the servant of God can begin to build confidence for the task that lies ahead. It will no longer be, “Who am I that I should go?” but “I AM with you” that matters. The first little section, 2:23-25, serves as a transition and introduction, for it records the Lord’s response to Israel in her affliction. The second part is the revelation to Moses at the burning bush (3:1-10), which is one of the most significant theological sections in the Torah. Finally, the record of Moses’ response to the call with his objections (3:11-22), makes up the third part, and in a way, is a transition to the next section, where God supplies proof of his power.

[2:23]  ¹⁶ tn The verse begins with the temporal indicator “And it was” (cf. KJV, ASV “And it came to pass”). This has been left untranslated for stylistic reasons.

[2:23]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in those many days.”

[2:23]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the sons of Israel.”

[2:23]  ¹⁹ tn “They cried out” is from זָעַק (za’aq), and “desperate cry” is from שַׁוְעָה (shava’h).

[2:24]  ²⁰ sn The word for this painfully intense “groaning” appears elsewhere to describe a response to having two broken arms (Ezek 30:24).

[2:24]  ²¹ sn The two verbs “heard” and “remembered,” both preterites, say far more than they seem to say. The verb שָׁמַע (shama’, “to hear”) ordinarily includes responding to what is heard. It can even be found in idiomatic constructions meaning “to obey.” To say God heard their complaint means that God responded to it. Likewise, the verb זָכַר (zakhar, “to remember”) means to begin to act on the basis of what is remembered. A prayer to God that says, “Remember me,” is asking for more than mere recollection (see B. S. Childs, Memory and Tradition in Israel [SBT], 1-8). The structure of this section at the end of the chapter is powerful. There are four descriptions of the Israelites, with a fourfold reaction from God. On the Israelites’ side, they groaned (אָנַח [’anakh], נְאָקָה [nÿ’aqah]) and cried out (זָעַק [za’aq], שַׁוְעָה [shav’ah]) to God. On the divine side God heard (שָׁמָע, shama’) their groaning, remembered (זָכַר, zakhar) his covenant, looked (רָאָה, ra’ah) at the Israelites, and took notice (יָדַע, yada’) of them. These verbs emphasize God’s sympathy and compassion for the people. God is near to those in need; in fact, the deliverer had already been chosen. It is important to note at this point the repetition of the word “God.” The text is waiting to introduce the name “Yahweh” in a special way. Meanwhile, the fourfold repetition of “God” in vv. 24-25 is unusual and draws attention to the statements about his attention to Israel’s plight.

[3:7]  ²² tn The use of the infinitive absolute with the perfect tense intensifies the statement: I have surely seen – there is no doubt that I have seen and will do something about it.

[3:7]  ²³ sn Two new words are introduced now to the report of suffering: “affliction” and “pain/suffering.” These add to the dimension of the oppression of God’s people.

[3:9]  ²⁴ tn The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh) focuses attention on what is being said as grounds for what follows.

[3:9]  ²⁵ tn The word is a technical term for the outcry one might make to a judge. God had seen the oppression and so knew that the complaints were accurate, and so he initiated the proceedings against the oppressors (B. Jacob, Exodus, 59).

[3:9]  ²⁶ tn Heb “seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.” The word for the oppression is now לַחַץ (lakhats), which has the idea of pressure with the oppression – squeezing, pressuring – which led to its later use in the Semitic languages for torture. The repetition in the Hebrew text of the root in the participle form after this noun serves to stress the idea. This emphasis has been represented in the translation by the expression “seen how severely the Egyptians oppress them.”

[12:5]  ²⁷ tn The term translated “oppressed” is an objective genitive; the oppressed are the recipients/victims of violence.

[12:5]  ²⁸ tn Elsewhere in the psalms this noun is used of the painful groans of prisoners awaiting death (79:11; 102:20). The related verb is used of the painful groaning of those wounded in combat (Jer 51:52; Ezek 26:15) and of the mournful sighing of those in grief (Ezek 9:4; 24:17).

[12:5]  ²⁹ tn Heb “I will rise up.”

[12:5]  ³⁰ tn Heb “I will place in deliverance, he pants for it.” The final two words in Hebrew (יָפִיחַ לוֹ, yafiakh lo) comprise an asyndetic relative clause, “the one who pants for it.” “The one who pants” is the object of the verb “place” and the antecedent of the pronominal suffix (in the phrase “for it”) is “deliverance.” Another option is to translate, “I will place in deliverance the witness for him,” repointing יָפִיחַ (a Hiphil imperfect from פּוּחַ, puakh, “pant”) as יָפֵחַ (yafeakh), a noun meaning “witness.” In this case the Lord would be promising protection to those who have the courage to support the oppressed in the court of law. However, the first part of the verse focuses on the oppressed, not their advocates.

[5:7]  ³¹ tn Or “For” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).

[5:7]  ³² tn Heb “the house of Israel” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[5:7]  ³³ tn Heb “men,” but in a generic sense.

[5:7]  ³⁴ tn Heb “but, look, disobedience.” The precise meaning of מִשְׂפָּח (mishpakh), which occurs only here in the OT, is uncertain. Some have suggested a meaning “bloodshed.” The term is obviously chosen for its wordplay value; it sounds very much like מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, “justice”). The sound play draws attention to the point being made; the people have not met the Lord’s expectations.

[5:7]  ³⁵ tn Heb “but, look, a cry for help.” The verb (“he waited”) does double duty in the parallelism. צְעָקָה (tsa’qah) refers to the cries for help made by the oppressed. It sounds very much like צְדָקָה (tsÿdaqah, “fairness”). The sound play draws attention to the point being made; the people have not met the Lord’s expectations.