Job 22:9

22:9 you sent widows away empty-handed,

and the arms ¹  of the orphans you crushed. ² 

Job 24:3

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

they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.

Job 24:9

24:9 The fatherless child is snatched ³  from the breast, ⁴ 

the infant of the poor is taken as a pledge. ⁵ 

[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.

[24:9]  ³ tn The verb with no expressed subject is here again taken in the passive: “they snatch” becomes “[child] is snatched.”

[24:9]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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.