Proverbs 31:8
Open your mouth for those with no voice, for the cause of all the dispossessed.
BSB
ASV
Open thy mouth for the dumb, In the cause of all such as are left desolate.
KJV
Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.
the charge to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves — justice as advocacy, not just adjudication.
Open thy mouth for the dumb,.... Not who are naturally so, but who cannot speak in their own behalf, either through want of elocution, or knowledge of the laws; or who are bashful, timorous, and fearful, being overawed by the majesty of a court of judicature, or by their prosecutors; or who, as they have not a tongue, so not a purse, to speak for them, the fatherless and the widow; which latter has her name, in the Hebrew language, from dumbness.
Open thy mouth for the dumb - For such accused persons as have no counsellors, and cannot plead for themselves. Are appointed to destruction - בני חלוף beney chaloph, variously translated, children of passage - indigent travelers; children of desolation - those who have no possessions, or orphans. I believe it either signifies those who are strangers, and are travelling from place to place, or those who are ready to perish in consequence of want or oppression.
The walk5
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
Jeremiah 26:24Nevertheless, Ahikam son of Shaphan supported Jeremiah, so he was not handed over to the people to be put to death.
leads to
and commanded Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Achbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah the servant of the king:
Now behold, this day I have made you like a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of…
had Jeremiah brought from the courtyard of the guard, and they turned him over to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him home. So Jeremiah remained among his own people.
But before Jeremiah turned to go, Nebuzaradan added, “Return to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has appointed over the cities of Judah, and stay with him…
for when Jezebel had slaughtered the prophets of the LORD, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them, fifty men per cave, providing them with food and water.)
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.