Thou hast sent widows away empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been broken.
Job 22:9 preserves Eliphaz's charge that Job had driven widows away with nothing and crushed the power of the fatherless. It was hurled as the climactic demonstration that his evil was extensive and his wrongs without limit, coming after reproaches for self-centered pride and inflated self-regard. The charge was baseless and unfair to Job, recording an indictment rather than establishing that he had actually abused widows or orphans. The principles behind the friends' speeches were sound in themselves yet wrongly fastened upon his situation.
In fact his own vindication shows the reverse, that he had delivered the fatherless, filled widows' hearts with gladness, and extended active care to both widows and orphans. To dismiss widows unaided and to injure orphans stands as harshness and want of pity for the needy. Leveled with the other mocking insinuations that he was hiding guilt, this allegation pressed him until he stumbled, dimmed his vision of God, and drew from him hasty replies of self-vindication and self-defense.
Job 22:9 preserves Eliphaz's charge that Job had driven widows away with nothing and crushed the power of the fatherless. It was hurled as the climactic demonstration that his evil was extensive and his wrongs without limit, coming after reproaches for self-centered pride and inflated self-regard. The charge was baseless and unfair to Job, recording an indictment rather than establishing that he had actually abused widows or orphans. The principles behind the friends' speeches were sound in themselves yet wrongly fastened upon his situation.
In fact his own vindication shows the reverse, that he had delivered the fatherless, filled widows' hearts with gladness, and extended active care to both widows and orphans. To dismiss widows unaided and to injure orphans stands as harshness and want of pity for the needy. Leveled with the other mocking insinuations that he was hiding guilt, this allegation pressed him until he stumbled, dimmed his vision of God, and drew from him hasty replies of self-vindication and self-defense.