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Job_29:16 I [was] a father to the poor: and the cause [which] I knew not I searched out.
Ver. 16. I was a father to the poor] Ab laebionim, an elegant alliteration, as Mercer here noteth. Job was not only a friend to the poor, as said before, but a father, providing for their necessities, and protecting them from injuries. So Augustus Caesar delighted to be called Pater Patriae, the father of his country (Suet.). And our Queen Elizabeth would many times say that she could believe nothing of her people that parents would not believe of their children (Cambden, Eliz.).
And the cause which I knew not I sought out] Sifting it to the bran, and not pronouncing sentence till I had fully understood each circumstance of the controversy. Judge not according to the appearance, but judge a righteous judgment, Joh_7:24. Thucydides well saith, That there are two things most opposite to right proceedings, ôá÷ïò ôå êáé ïñãçí , haste and anger; a justificer must do nothing rashly, but with greatest deliberation and industry, to come to a right understanding of matters, in capital causes especially, lest he repent it too late; as that Sir James Pawlet did, who, out of humour and for revenge, laid by the heels Thomas Wolsey, then a country minister (afterwards a cardinal, and Lord Chancellor of England), for the which he suffered long imprisonment (Negotiat. of Card. Wolsey). And as that judge mentioned by Fortescue, who, having condemned a gentle woman to death for the murder of her husband, upon the bare accusation of her man, which afterwards was found false, saepius ipse mihi falsus est; he afterwards confessed unto me, saith the author, that he should never during his life be able to clear his conscience of that fact. We know what pains Solomon took in the case of the two harlots that strove before him. And we have read of a judge, who, to find out a murder, caused those that were accused to open their bosoms, and felt the beating of their hearts. And when he found one of their hearts to beat extraordinarily, Tu, inquit, fecisti, Thou art the murderer certainly, said he. The man presently confessed the fact, and was executed for it (John Manl. loc. com. p. 290).