I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.
Parallel translations
- WEB I was a father to the needy. The cause of him who I didn’t know, I searched out.
- BSB I was a father to the needy, and I took up the case of the stranger.
- NKJV I was a father to the poor, And I searched out the case that I did not know.
- NASB “I was a father to the poor, And I investigated the case which I did not know.
- NLT I was a father to the poor and assisted strangers who needed help.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Job was a father to the needy and championed the cause of strangers.
Overview
Job describes fatherly care for the poor and diligent investigation of the cases of those he did not even know, ensuring justice. His advocacy extended beyond friends to strangers in need. This reflects God's impartial justice and love for the marginalized, a love supremely shown in Christ, who befriends the outcast and pleads our cause (1 John 2:1).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Prov 29:7The righteous considereth the cause of the poor: but the wicked regardeth not to know it.
- Ps 68:5A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.
- Job 24:4They turn the needy out of the way: the poor of the earth hide themselves together.
- Job 31:18(For from my youth he was brought up with me, as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother’s womb;)
- Prov 25:2It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
- Esth 2:7And he brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter: for she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful; whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own daughter.
- Exod 18:26And they judged the people at all seasons: the hard causes they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves.
- Deut 13:14Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;
- Eph 5:1Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;
- 1 Kgs 3:16–28Then came there two women, that were harlots, unto the king, and stood before him.
- Deut 17:8–10If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the LORD thy God shall choose;
- Jas 1:27Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 29:16 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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