Keluaran 22:21-24

22:21 “You must not wrong ¹  a foreigner ²  nor oppress him, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

22:22 “You must not afflict ³  any widow or orphan. 22:23 If you afflict them ⁴  in any way ⁵  and they cry to me, I will surely hear ⁶  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. ⁷ 

Mazmur 82:3

82:3 Defend the cause of the poor and the fatherless! ⁸ 

Vindicate the oppressed and suffering!

Yesaya 1:23

1:23 Your officials are rebels, ⁹ 

they associate with ¹⁰  thieves.

All of them love bribery,

and look for ¹¹  payoffs. ¹² 

They do not take up the cause of the orphan, ¹³ 

or defend the rights of the widow. ¹⁴ 

Yeremia 7:6

7:6 Stop oppressing foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. ¹⁵  Stop killing innocent people ¹⁶  in this land. Stop paying allegiance to ¹⁷  other gods. That will only bring about your ruin. ¹⁸ 

Yehezkiel 16:49

16:49 “‘See here – this was the iniquity ¹⁹  of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had majesty, abundance of food, and enjoyed carefree ease, but they did not help ²⁰  the poor and needy.

Amos 5:12

5:12 Certainly ²¹  I am aware of ²²  your many rebellious acts ²³ 

and your numerous sins.

You ²⁴  torment the innocent, you take bribes,

and you deny justice to ²⁵  the needy at the city gate. ²⁶ 

[22:21]  ¹ tn Or “oppress.”

[22:21]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Here again and with “cry” the infinitive absolute functions with a diminished emphasis (GKC 342-43 §113.o).

[22:23]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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.

[82:3]  ⁸ 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; 94:6; 146:9; as well as Job 6:27; 22:9; 24:3, 9; 29:12; 31:17, 21).

[1:23]  ⁹ tn Or “stubborn”; CEV “have rejected me.”

[1:23]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and companions of” (so KJV, NASB); CEV “friends of crooks.”

[1:23]  ¹¹ tn Heb “pursue”; NIV “chase after gifts.”

[1:23]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ sn See the note at v. 17.

[1:23]  ¹⁴ 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.

[7:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Stop oppressing foreigner, orphan, and widow.”

[7:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Stop shedding innocent blood.”

[7:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “going/following after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom involved here.

[7:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “going after other gods to your ruin.”

[16:49]  ¹⁹ tn Or “guilt.”

[16:49]  ²⁰ tn Heb “strengthen the hand of.”

[5:12]  ²¹ tn Or “for.”

[5:12]  ²² tn Or “I know” (so most English versions).

[5:12]  ²³ tn Or “transgressions,” “sins.” See the note on the word “crimes” in 1:3 and on the phrase “covenant violations” in 2:4.

[5:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Those who.”

[5:12]  ²⁵ tn Heb “turn aside.” They “turn aside” the needy by denying them the justice they deserve at the city gate (where legal decisions were made, and therefore where justice should be done).

[5:12]  ²⁶ sn Legal disputes were resolved in the city gate, where the town elders met.