to fall · verb, hiphil imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural
fatherless
יָת֥וֹםya.Tom
H3490
a bereaved person · noun, common masculine singular absolute
dig
כָּרָהkârâh
H3738
properly
friend
רֵֽיעֲכֶֽםRei.'a.Khem
H7453
an associate (more or less close) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 22:9 Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.
Job 24:3 They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow’s ox for a pledge.
Job 24:9 They pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor.
Psalms 7:15 He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.
Joel 3:3 And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.
Nahum 3:10 Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cas…
James 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself u…
2 Peter 2:3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their d…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 6:22–end
Poor Job goes on here to upbraid his friends with their unkindness and the hard usage they gave him. He here appeals to themselves concerning several things which tended both to justify him and to condemn them. If they would but think impartially, and speak as they thought, they could not but own,
I. That, though he was necessitous, yet he was not craving, nor burdensome to his friends. Those that are so, whose troubles serve them to beg by, are commonly less pitied than the silent poor. Job would be glad to see his friends, but he did not say, Bring unto me (Job 6:22), or, Deliver me, Job 6:23. He did not desire to put them to any expense, did not urge his friends either, 1. To make a colle…
literally, "ye cause" (supply, "your anger") [UMBREIT], a net, namely, of sophistry [NOYES and SCHUTTENS], to fall upon the desolate (one bereft of help, like the fatherless orphan);
and ye dig (a pit) for your friend--that is, try to ensnare him, to catch him in the use of unguarded language [NOYES]. (Psa 57:6); metaphor from hunters catching wild beasts in a pit covered with brushwood to conceal it. UMBREIT from the Syriac, and answering to his interpretation of the first clause, has, "Would you be indignant against your friend?" The Hebrew in Job 41:6, means to "feast upon." As the first clause asks, "Would you catch him in a net?" so this follows up the image, "And would you next feast…
Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless,.... Meaning himself; who was like a fatherless child, stripped of all his mercies, of his children, his substance, and his health; and was in a most miserable, helpless, and forlorn condition; and, moreover, deprived of the gracious presence and visible protection of his heavenly Father, being given up for a while into the hands of Satan; and now it was unkind and barbarous to overwhelm such a man, who was overwhelmed with overmuch sorrow already: or, "ye cause to fall upon the fatherless"; either their wrath and anger, as the Targum and many others (d) instead of doing him justice; or a wall, or any such thing, to crush him, as Aben Ezra; or a lot, as Simeo…
The Church Fathers
"And yet you are attacking the orphan" that is your role: you want to insult me without understanding. what all this means. They should not have insulted Job who was in their presence; he says, "And yet. "
"You would even attack the orphan," that is, me, for I am deprived of any human assistance. And since God is "the Father of the orphans," you make him angry by offending me. "And you would trample your friend underfoot" with your words. You trample him even more violently than with your feet, and you scorn the laws of friendship. But God takes these faults into account. He, who not only commands us to love our neighbor like ourselves, also wants to be called "love."
Yea ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye strive to overthrow your friend. For he shews what great weakness he considers himself to be of, who calls himself 'fatherless.' But because charity even when wounded cannot quit love, he at once complains that they would have him overthrown, and yet witnesses that he is their friend. Whose words, as we have often said already, in such wise specially apply to himself, that yet by them, in the Spirit of Prophecy, we have at the same time set forth the sentiment of the faithful People, in the voice of the Church Universal. Which same People, while encountering the opposition of heretics, both regards itself as weak in humility, and yet never abandons the greatness of keeping love entire, For the People of Holy Church, as it is the child of a dead Father, is not unfitly called 'fatherless,' in that henceforth indeed through faith it follows His life of Resurrection, but does not as yet see Him by His appearing. Now heretics 'overwhelm the fatherless,' when they bear hard upon the lowliness of the faithful People, by clamorous and false charges, and yet he is a 'friend,' whom they set themselves to 'overthrow,' in that God's faithful People never cease with loving affection to call to the Truth, the very persons whom they suffer as persecutors. But herein it is necessary to be known, that holy men neither dread from weakness to be exposed to falsehoods, nor in being harmed ever hold their peace as to the Truth.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Fatherless · The wicked: Overwhelm — The wicked: Overwhelm
Orphan · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
24 Teach me, and I will be silent,
And cause me to understand wherein I have failed.
25 How forcible are words in accordance with truth!
But what doth reproof from you reprove?
26 Do you think to reprove words?
The words of one in despair belong to the wind.
27 Ye would even cast lots for the orphan,
And traffic about your friend.
נמרצוּ, Job 6:25, in the signification of נמלצוּ (Psa 119:103), would suit very well: how smooth, delicate, sweet, are, etc. (Hirz., Ew., Schlottm.); but this meaning does not suit Job 16:3. Hupfeld, by comparison with mar, bitter, translates: quantumvis acerba; but מה may signify quidquid, though not quantumvis. Hahn compares the Arabic verb to be sick, and transl…
even send an orphan into slavery: Job, the former protector of orphans (31:17, 21), used a proverbial example of his counselors’ hard-heartedness toward the defenseless (see 17:5).
Rashi on Job 6:27
You cast with your judgment, you cast wrath upon a poor man like me, with the line of judgment; and you dig a pit for your friend into which to cast him.