Job 22:9

22:9 you sent widows away empty-handed,

and the arms ¹  of the orphans you crushed. ² 

Job 35:9

35:9 “People ³  cry out

because of the excess of oppression; ⁴ 

they cry out for help

because of the power ⁵  of the mighty. ⁶ 

Job 38:15

38:15 Then from the wicked the light is withheld,

and the arm raised in violence ⁷  is broken. ⁸ 

[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.

[35:9]  ³ tn The word “people” is supplied, because the sentence only has the masculine plural verb.

[35:9]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Heb “the arm,” a metaphor for strength or power.

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

[38:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “the raised arm.” The words “in violence” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation to clarify the metaphor.

[38:15]  ⁶ sn What is active at night, the violence symbolized by the raised arm, is broken with the dawn. G. R. Driver thought the whole verse referred to stars, and that the arm is the navigator’s term for the line of stars (“Two astronomical passages in the Old Testament,” JTS 4 [1953]: 208-12).