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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 31:16 - 31:16
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
16 If I held back the poor from what they desired,
And caused the eyes of the widow to languish,
17 And ate my morsel alone
Without letting the fatherless eat thereof: -
18 No indeed, from my youth he grew up to me as to a father,
And from my mother's womb I guided her -
The whole strophe is the hypothetical antecedent of the imprecative conclusion, Job 31:22, which closes the following strophe. Since מָנַע דָּבָר מִמֶּנִוּ, cohibere aliquid ab aliquo (Job 22:7), is said as much in accordance with the usage of the language as מְנָעֹו מִדָּבָר, cohibere aliquem ab aliquo (Num 24:11; Ecc 2:10), in the sense of denegare alicui aliquid, there is no reason for taking מֵחֵפֶץ דַּלִּים together as a genitival clause (a voto tenuium), as the accentuation requires it. On חֵפֶץ, vid., on Job 21:21; it signifies solicitude (what is ardently desired) and business, here the former: what is ever the interest and want of the poor (the reduced or those without means). From such like things he does not keep the poor back, i.e., does not refuse them; and the eyes of the widow he did not cause or allow to languish (כִּלָּה, to bring to an end, i.e., cause to languish, of the eyes, as Lev 26:16; 1Sa 2:33); he let not their longing for assistance be consumed of itself, let not the fountain of their tears become dry without effect. If he had done the opposite, if he had eaten his bread (פַּת = פַּת לֶחֶם) alone, and not allowed the orphan to eat of it with him - but no, he had not acted thus; on the contrary (כִּי as Psa 130:4 and frequently), he (the parentless one) grew up to him (גְּדֵלַנִי = גָּדֵל לִּי, Ges. §121, 4, according to Ew. §315, b, “by the interweaving of the dialects of the people into the ancient form of the declining language;” perhaps it is more correct to say it is by virtue of a poetic, forced, and rare brevity of expression) as to a father (= לְאָב כְּמֹו), and from his mother's womb he guided her, the helpless and defenceless widow, like a faithful child leading its sick or aged mother. The hyperbolical expression מִבֶּטֶן אִמִּי dates this sympathizing and active charity back to the very beginning of Job's life. He means to say that it is in-born to him, and he has exercised it ever since he was first able to do so. The brevity of the form גְּדֵלַנִי, brief to incorrectness, might be removed by the pointing גִּדְּלַנִי (Olsh.): from my youth up he (the fatherless one) honoured me as a father; and גִּדְּלַנִי (instead of כִּבְּדַנִי would be explained by the consideration, that a veneration is meant that attributed a dignity which exceed his age to the נער who was not yet old enough to be a father. But גִּדֵּל signifies “to cause to grow” in such a connection elsewhere (parall. רֹומֵם, to raise), wherefore lxx translates ἐξέτρεφον (גִּדַּלְתִּי); and גְּדֵלַנִי has similar examples of the construction of intransitives with the acc. instead of the dat. (especially Zec 7:5) in its favour: they became me great, i.e., became great in respect of me. Other ways of getting over the difficulty are hardly worth mentioning: the Syriac version reads כְּאֵב (pain) and אֲנָחֹות; Raschi makes Job 31:18, the idea of benevolence, the subj., and Job 31:18 (as מִדָּה, attribute) the obj. The suff. of אַנְחֶנָּה Schlottm. refers to the female orphan; but Job refers again to the orphan in the following strophe, and the reference to the widow, more natural here on account of the gender, has nothing against it. The choice of the verb (comp. Job 38:32) also corresponds to such a reference, since the Hiph. has an intensified Kal-signification here.
(Note: זכר and הזכיר, to remember; זרע and הזריע, to sow, to cover with seed; חרשׁ and החרישׁ, both in the signification silere and fabricari; לעג and הלעיג, to mock, Job 21:3; משׁל and המשׁיל, dominari, Job 25:2; נטה and הטה, to extend, to bow; קנה ;w and הקנה (to obtain by purchase); קצר and הקציר, to reap, Job 24:6, are all similar. In Arab. the Kal nahaituhu signifies I put him aside by going on one side (nahw or nâhije), the Hiph. anhaituhu, I put him aside by bringing him to the side (comp. יַנְחֵם, Job 12:23).)
From earliest youth, so far back as he can remember, he was wont to behave like a father to the orphan, and like a child to the widow.