Job 5:15

5:15 So he saves ¹  from the sword that comes from their mouth, ² 

even ³  the poor from the hand of the powerful.

Job 24:4

24:4 They turn the needy from the pathway,

and the poor of the land hide themselves together. ⁴ 

Job 29:16

29:16 I was a father ⁵  to the needy,

and I investigated the case of the person I did not know;

Job 30:25

30:25 Have I not wept for the unfortunate? ⁶ 

Was not my soul grieved for the poor?

Job 31:19

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

or a poor man without a coat,

Job 24:14

24:14 Before daybreak ⁷  the murderer rises up;

he kills the poor and the needy;

in the night he is ⁸  like a thief. ⁹ 

[5:15]  ¹ tn The verb, the Hiphil preterite of יָשַׁע (yasha’, “and he saves”) indicates that by frustrating the plans of the wicked God saves the poor. So the vav (ו) consecutive shows the result in the sequence of the verses.

[5:15]  ² tn The juxtaposition of “from the sword from their mouth” poses translation difficulties. Some mss do not have the preposition on “their mouth,” but render the expression as a construct: “from the sword of their mouth.” This would mean their tongue, and by metonymy, what they say. The expression “from their mouth” corresponds well with “from the hand” in the next colon. And as E. Dhorme (Job, 67) notes, what is missing is a parallel in the first part with “the poor” in the second. So he follows Cappel in repointing “from the sword” as a Hophal participle, מֹחֳרָב (mokhorav), meaning “the ruined.” If a change is required, this has the benefit of only changing the pointing. The difficulty with this is that the word “desolate, ruined” is not used for people, but only to cities, lands, or mountains. The sense of the verse can be supported from the present pointing: “from the sword [which comes] from their mouth”; the second phrase could also be in apposition, meaning, “from the sword, i.e., from their mouth.”

[5:15]  ³ tn If the word “poor” is to do double duty, i.e., serving as the object of the verb “saves” in the first colon as well as the second, then the conjunction should be explanatory.

[24:4]  ⁴ sn Because of the violence and oppression of the wicked, the poor and needy, the widows and orphans, all are deprived of their rights and forced out of the ways and into hiding just to survive.

[29:16]  ⁷ sn The word “father” does not have a wide range of meanings in the OT. But there are places that it is metaphorical, especially in a legal setting like this where the poor need aid.

[30:25]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “for the hard of day.”

[24:14]  ¹³ tn The text simply has לָאוֹר (la’or, “at light” or “at daylight”), probably meaning just at the time of dawn.

[24:14]  ¹⁴ tn In a few cases the jussive is used without any real sense of the jussive being present (see GKC 323 §109.k).

[24:14]  ¹⁵ sn The point is that he is like a thief in that he works during the night, just before the daylight, when the advantage is all his and the victim is most vulnerable.