I was a father to the needy. The cause of him who I didn’t know, I searched out.
Parallel translations
- KJV I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not 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 care about justice for the poor. The wicked aren’t concerned about knowledge.
- Ps 68:5A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows, is God in his holy habitation.
- Job 24:4They turn the needy out of the way. The poor of the earth all hide themselves.
- Job 31:18(no, from my youth he grew up with me as with a father, her I have guided from my mother’s womb);
- Prov 25:2It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.
- Esth 2:7He brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter; for she had neither father nor mother. The maiden was fair and beautiful; and when her father and mother were dead, Mordecai took her for his own daughter.
- Exod 18:26They judged the people at all times. They brought the hard causes to Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves.
- Deut 13:14then you shall inquire, and make search, and ask diligently. Behold, if it is true, and the thing certain, that such abomination was done among you,
- Eph 5:1Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children.
- 1 Kgs 3:16–28Then two women who were prostitutes came to the king, and stood before him.
- Deut 17:8–10If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within your gates; then you shall arise, and go up to the place which Yahweh your God chooses.
- Jas 1:27Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.