Bible Strands
Job 31:21
if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless because I saw that I had support in the gate,
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Job addresses God and his friends in a sworn oath cataloging his conduct and listing self-imposed curses if he has violated moral law.
The words — הֲנִיפ֣וֹתִי (ha.ni.Fo.ti) means "I brandished" or "I lifted up," paired with יָת֣וֹם (ya.Tom), "fatherless one," to describe the physical act of raising a hand to exploit a vulnerable person.
The thread — The treatment of the fatherless recurs in Job 22:9, Job 29:12, and Job 6:27, where it functions as a concrete test of justice rather than abstract piety.
Why it lands — The verse requires a direct inventory of how social advantage is deployed, forcing the reader to measure whether privilege is used to crush or to uphold the defenseless.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate:
Cross-references
- Job 22:9 You sent widows away empty-handed, and the strength of the fatherless was crushed.
- Job 29:12 because I rescued the poor who cried out and the fatherless who had no helper.
- Job 6:27 You would even cast lots for an orphan and barter away your friend.
- Job 24:9 The fatherless infant is snatched from the breast; the nursing child of the poor is seized for a debt.
- Proverbs 23:10 Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless,
- Jeremiah 5:28 They have grown fat and sleek, and have excelled in the deeds of the wicked. They have not taken up the cause of the fatherless, that they might prosper; nor have they defended the rights of the needy.
- Ezekiel 22:7 Father and mother are treated with contempt. Within your walls the foreign resident is exploited, the fatherless and the widow are oppressed.
- Micah 2:1 Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.
- Micah 7:3 Both hands are skilled at evil; the prince and the judge demand a bribe. When the powerful utters his evil desire, they all conspire together.