Job 29:16
I was a father to the needy, and I took up the case of the stranger.
BSB
ASV
I was a father to the needy: And the cause of him that I knew not I searched out.
KJV
I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.
I was a father of the poor, and the cause, which I knew not, I searched out. [HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION] For very often men give much to the poor, not because they love those poor, but because if they do not give, they dread the indignation of the Judge Above; which persons, if they were not afraid of God, would have had no mind to give the things they possess.
I was an eye to the blind, and a foot was I to the lame. I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out. [HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION] Herein the mind of the reader might perchance put the question, wherefore it is that blessed Job reckons up his own virtue with so much particularity. For it is a mark of holy men to conceal the good things they may have done, lest it chance that they bring upon themselves the downfall of exaltation.
Darkness - I passed safely through many difficulties, and dangers, and common calamities. Seat - When I caused the seat of justice to be set for me. By this, and several other expressions, it appears that Job was a magistrate.
The cause which I knew not I searched out - When any thing difficult occurred, I did not give it a slight consideration; I examined it to the bottom, whatever pain, time, and trouble it cost me, that I might not pronounce a hasty judgment.
The grounds on which Job was praised (Job 29:11), his helping the afflicted (Ps 72:12) who cried to him for help, as a judge, or as one possessed of means of charity. Translate: "The fatherless who had none to help him."
So far was I from "breaking the arms of the fatherless," as Eliphaz asserts (Job 22:9), I was a "father" to such. the cause which I knew not--rather, "of him whom I knew not," the stranger (Pr 29:7 [UMBREIT]; contrast Lu 18:1, &c.).
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Proverbs 25:2It is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to search it out.
leads to
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.
O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways!
Can you fathom the deep things of God or discover the limits of the Almighty?
Through
Psalms 68:5A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in His holy habitation.
leads to
But You have regarded trouble and grief; You see to repay it by Your hand. The victim entrusts himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless.
Abandon your orphans; I will preserve their lives. Let your widows trust in Me.”
Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; uphold the rights of the afflicted and oppressed.
He executes justice for the fatherless and widow, and He loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing.
The LORD protects foreigners; He sustains the fatherless and the widow, but the ways of the wicked He frustrates.