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 27:15

27:15 Those who survive him are buried by the plague, ³ 

and their ⁴  widows do not mourn for them.

Job 24:21

24:21 He preys on ⁵  the barren and childless woman, ⁶ 

and does not treat the widow well.

Job 29:13

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

and I made the widow’s heart rejoice; ⁸ 

Job 31:16

31:16 If I have refused to give the poor what they desired, ⁹ 

or caused the eyes of the widow to fail,

[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.

[27:15]  ³ tn The text says “will be buried in/by death.” A number of passages in the Bible use “death” to mean the plague that kills (see Jer 15:2; Isa 28:3; and BDB 89 s.v. בְּ 2.a). In this sense it is like the English expression for the plague, “the Black Death.”

[27:15]  ⁴ tc The LXX has “their widows” to match the plural, and most commentators harmonize in the same way.

[24:21]  ⁵ tc The form in the text is the active participle, “feed; graze; shepherd.” The idea of “prey” is not natural to it. R. Gordis (Job, 270) argues that third he (ה) verbs are often by-forms of geminate verbs, and so the meaning here is more akin to רָעַע (ra’a’, “to crush”). The LXX seems to have read something like הֵרַע (hera’, “oppressed”).

[24:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “the childless [woman], she does not give birth.” The verbal clause is intended to serve as a modifier here for the woman. See on subordinate verbal clauses GKC 490 §156.d, f.

[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.

[31:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “kept the poor from [their] desire.”