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 ¹  the barren and childless woman, ² 

and does not treat the widow well.

Ayub 29:12-13

29:12 for I rescued the poor who cried out for help,

and the orphan who ³  had no one to assist him;

29:13 the blessing of the dying man descended on me, ⁴ 

and I made the widow’s heart rejoice; ⁵ 

Ayub 31:16-18

31:16 If I have refused to give the poor what they desired, ⁶ 

or caused the eyes of the widow to fail,

31:17 If I ate my morsel of bread myself,

and did not share any of it with orphans ⁷  –

31:18 but from my youth I raised the orphan ⁸  like a father,

and from my mother’s womb ⁹ 

I guided the widow! ¹⁰ 

Ayub 31:21

31:21 if I have raised my hand ¹¹  to vote against the orphan,

when I saw my support in the court, ¹² 

Keluaran 22:21-24

22:21 “You must not wrong ¹³  a foreigner ¹⁴  nor oppress him, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

22:22 “You must not afflict ¹⁵  any widow or orphan. 22:23 If you afflict them ¹⁶  in any way ¹⁷  and they cry to me, I will surely hear ¹⁸  their cry, 22:24 and my anger will burn and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives will be widows and your children will be fatherless. ¹⁹ 

Ulangan 27:19

27:19 ‘Cursed is the one who perverts justice for the resident foreigner, the orphan, and the widow.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

Mazmur 94:6

94:6 They kill the widow and the one residing outside his native land,

and they murder the fatherless. ²⁰ 

Yesaya 1:17

1:17 Learn to do what is right!

Promote justice!

Give the oppressed reason to celebrate! ²¹ 

Take up the cause of the orphan!

Defend the rights of the widow! ²² 

Yesaya 1:23

1:23 Your officials are rebels, ²³ 

they associate with ²⁴  thieves.

All of them love bribery,

and look for ²⁵  payoffs. ²⁶ 

They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ²⁷ 

or defend the rights of the widow. ²⁸ 

Yesaya 10:2

10:2 to keep the poor from getting fair treatment,

and to deprive ²⁹  the oppressed among my people of justice,

so they can steal what widows own,

and loot what belongs to orphans. ³⁰ 

Yehezkiel 22:7

22:7 They have treated father and mother with contempt ³¹  within you; they have oppressed the foreigner among you; they have wronged the orphan and the widow ³²  within you.

Maleakhi 3:5

3:5 “I ³³  will come to you in judgment. I will be quick to testify against those who practice divination, those who commit adultery, those who break promises, ³⁴  and those who exploit workers, widows, and orphans, ³⁵  who refuse to help ³⁶  the immigrant ³⁷  and in this way show they do not fear me,” says the Lord who rules over all.

Lukas 18:3-5

18:3 There was also a widow ³⁸  in that city ³⁹  who kept coming ⁴⁰  to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 18:4 For ⁴¹  a while he refused, but later on ⁴²  he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor have regard for people, ⁴³  18:5 yet because this widow keeps on bothering me, I will give her justice, or in the end she will wear me out ⁴⁴  by her unending pleas.’” ⁴⁵ 

[24:21]  ¹ 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]  ² 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.

[29:12]  ³ tn The negative introduces a clause that serves as a negative attribute; literally the following clause says, “and had no helper” (see GKC 482 §152.u).

[29:13]  ⁴ tn The verb is simply בּוֹא (bo’, “to come; to enter”). With the preposition עַל (’al, “upon”) it could mean “came to me,” or “came upon me,” i.e., descended (see R. Gordis, Job, 320).

[29:13]  ⁵ tn The verb אַרְנִן (’arnin) is from רָנַן (ranan, “to give a ringing cry”) but here “cause to give a ringing cry,” i.e., shout of joy. The rejoicing envisioned in this word is far greater than what the words “sing” or “rejoice” suggest.

[31:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “kept the poor from [their] desire.”

[31:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “and an orphan did not eat from it.”

[31:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “he grew up with me.” Several commentators have decided to change the pronoun to “I,” and make it causative.

[31:18]  ⁹ tn The expression “from my mother’s womb” is obviously hyperbolic. It is a way of saying “all his life.”

[31:18]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I guided her,” referring to the widow mentioned in v. 16.

[31:21]  ¹¹ tn The expression “raised my hand” refers to a threatening manner or gesture in the court rather than a threat of physical violence in the street. Thus the words “to vote” are supplied in the translation to indicate the setting.

[31:21]  ¹² tn Heb “gate,” referring to the city gate where judicial decisions were rendered in the culture of the time. The translation uses the word “court” to indicate this to the modern reader, who might not associate a city gate complex with judicial functions.

[22:21]  ¹³ tn Or “oppress.”

[22:21]  ¹⁴ tn Or “alien,” both here and in 23:9. This individual is a resident foreigner; he lives in the land but, aside from provisions such as this, might easily be without legal rights.

[22:22]  ¹⁵ tn The verb “afflict” is a Piel imperfect from עָנָה (’anah); it has a wide range of meanings: “afflict, oppress, humiliate, rape.” These victims are at the mercy of the judges, businessmen, or villains. The righteous king and the righteous people will not mistreat them (see Isa 1:17; Job 31:16, 17, 21).

[22:23]  ¹⁶ tn The accusative here is the masculine singular pronoun, which leads S. R. Driver to conclude that this line is out of place, even though the masculine singular can be used in places like this (Exodus, 232). U. Cassuto says its use is to refer to certain classes (Exodus, 292).

[22:23]  ¹⁷ tn Here again and with “cry” the infinitive absolute functions with a diminished emphasis (GKC 342-43 §113.o).

[22:23]  ¹⁸ tn Here is the normal use of the infinitive absolute with the imperfect tense to emphasize the verb: “I will surely hear,” implying, “I will surely respond.”

[22:24]  ¹⁹ sn The punishment will follow the form of talionic justice, an eye for an eye, in which the punishment matches the crime. God will use invading armies (“sword” is a metonymy of adjunct here) to destroy them, making their wives widows and their children orphans.

[94:6]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew noun יָתוֹם (yatom) refers to one who has lost his father (not necessarily his mother, see Ps 109:9). Because they were so vulnerable and were frequently exploited, fatherless children are often mentioned as epitomizing the oppressed (see Pss 10:14; 68:5; 82:3; 146:9; as well as Job 6:27; 22:9; 24:3, 9; 29:12; 31:17, 21).

[1:17]  ²¹ tn The precise meaning of this line is uncertain. The translation assumes an emendation of חָמוֹץ (khamots, “oppressor [?]”) to חָמוּץ (khamuts, “oppressed”), a passive participle from II חָמַץ (khamats, “oppress”; HALOT 329 s.v. II חמץ) and takes the verb II אָשַׁר (’ashar) in the sense of “make happy” (the delocutive Piel, meaning “call/pronounce happy,” is metonymic here, referring to actually effecting happiness). The parallelism favors this interpretation, for the next two lines speak of positive actions on behalf of the destitute. The other option is to retain the MT pointing and translate, “set right the oppressor,” but the nuance “set right” is not clearly attested elsewhere for the verb I אשׁר. This verb does appear as a participle in Isa 3:12 and 9:16 with the meaning “to lead or guide.” If it can mean to “lead” or “rebuke/redirect” in this verse, the prophet could be contrasting this appeal for societal reformation (v. 17c) with a command to reorder their personal lives (v. 17a-b). J. A. Motyer (The Prophecy of Isaiah, 47) suggests that these three statements (v. 17a-c) provide “the contrast between the two ends of imperfect society, the oppressor and the needy, the one inflicting and the other suffering the hurt. Isaiah looks for a transformed society wherever it needs transforming.”

[1:17]  ²² tn This word refers to a woman who has lost her husband, by death or divorce. The orphan and widow are often mentioned in the OT as epitomizing the helpless and impoverished who have been left without the necessities of life due to the loss of a family provider.

[1:23]  ²³ tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”

[1:23]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”

[1:23]  ²⁵ tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”

[1:23]  ²⁶ sn Isaiah may have chosen the word for gifts (שַׁלְמוֹנִים, shalmonim; a hapax legomena here), as a sarcastic pun on what these rulers should have been doing. Instead of attending to peace and wholeness (שָׁלוֹם, shalom), they sought after payoffs (שַׁלְמוֹנִים).

[1:23]  ²⁷ sn See the note at v. 17.

[1:23]  ²⁸ sn The rich oppressors referred to in Isaiah and the other eighth century prophets were not rich capitalists in the modern sense of the word. They were members of the royal military and judicial bureaucracies in Israel and Judah. As these bureaucracies grew, they acquired more and more land and gradually commandeered the economy and legal system. At various administrative levels bribery and graft become commonplace. The common people outside the urban administrative centers were vulnerable to exploitation in such a system, especially those, like widows and orphans, who had lost their family provider through death. Through confiscatory taxation, conscription, excessive interest rates, and other oppressive governmental measures and policies, they were gradually disenfranchised and lost their landed property, and with it, their rights as citizens. The socio-economic equilibrium envisioned in the law of Moses was radically disturbed.

[10:2]  ²⁹ tn Or “rob” (ASV, NASB, NCV, NRSV); KJV “take away the right from the poor.”

[10:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “so that widows are their plunder, and they can loot orphans.”

[10:2]  sn On the socio-economic background of vv. 1-2, see the note at 1:23.

[22:7]  ³¹ tn Heb “treated lightly, cursed.”

[22:7]  ³² tn Widows and orphans are often coupled together in the OT (Deut 14:29; 16:11, 14; 24:19-21; 26:12-13; Jer 7:6; 22:3). They represented all who were poor and vulnerable to economic exploitation.

[3:5]  ³³ tn The first person pronoun (a reference to the Lord) indicates that the Lord himself now speaks (see also v. 1). The prophet speaks in vv. 2-4 (see also 2:17).

[3:5]  ³⁴ tn Heb “those who swear [oaths] falsely.” Cf. NIV “perjurers”; TEV “those who give false testimony”; NLT “liars.”

[3:5]  ³⁵ tn Heb “and against the oppressors of the worker for a wage, [the] widow and orphan.”

[3:5]  ³⁶ tn Heb “those who turn aside.”

[3:5]  ³⁷ tn Or “resident foreigner”; NIV “aliens”; NRSV “the alien.”

[18:3]  ³⁸ sn This widow was not necessarily old, since many people lived only into their thirties in the 1st century.

[18:3]  ³⁹ tn Or “town.”

[18:3]  ⁴⁰ tn This is an iterative imperfect; the widow did this on numerous occasions.

[18:4]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “And for.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[18:4]  ⁴² tn Grk “after these things.”

[18:4]  ⁴³ tn Grk “man,” but the singular ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used as a generic in comparison to God.

[18:5]  ⁴⁴ tn The term ὑπωπιάζω (Jupwpiazw) in this context means “to wear someone out by continual annoying” (L&N 25.245).

[18:5]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “by her continual coming,” but the point of annoyance to the judge is her constant pleas for justice (v. 3).