Ayub 22:6

22:6 “For you took pledges ¹  from your brothers

for no reason,

and you stripped the clothing from the naked. ² 

Ayub 22:9

22:9 you sent widows away empty-handed,

and the arms ³  of the orphans you crushed. ⁴ 

Ayub 24:3

24:3 They drive away the orphan’s donkey;

they take the widow’s ox as a pledge.

Ayub 24:21

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

and does not treat the widow well.

[22:6]  ¹ tn The verb חָבַל (khaval) means “to take pledges.” In this verse Eliphaz says that Job not only took as pledge things the poor need, like clothing, but he did it for no reason.

[22:6]  ² tn The “naked” here refers to people who are poorly clothed. Otherwise, a reading like the NIV would be necessary: “you stripped the clothes…[leaving them] naked.” So either he made them naked by stripping their garments off, or they were already in rags.

[22:9]  ³ tn The “arms of the orphans” are their helps or rights on which they depended for support.

[22:9]  ⁴ 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.

[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.