Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 9. They pluck the fatherless from the breast ] They forcibly take young children in order that they may bring them up in a state of slavery.
This verse is the commencement of a new paragraph, and points out the arbitrary dealings of oppressors, under despotic governors.
Take a pledge of the poor. ] Oppressive landlords who let out their grounds at an exorbitant rent, which the poor labourers, though using the utmost diligence, are unable at all times to pay; and then the unfeeling wretch sells then up, as the phrase here is, or takes their cow, their horse, their cart, or their bed, in pledge, that the money shall be paid in such a time. This is one of the crying sins of some countries of Europe.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-12 - Job discourses further about the prosperity of the wicked. That man live at ease who are ungodly and profane, he had showed, ch. xxi. Her he shows that many who live in open defiance of all the laws of justice, succeed in wicked practices; and we do not see them reckone with in this world. He notices those that do wrong under pretence of law and authority; and robbers, those that do wrong by force. He says "God layeth not folly to them;" that is, he does not at once send his judgments, nor make them examples, and so manifest their folly to all the world. But he that gets riches, and not by right, at his end shal be a fool, Jer 17:11.
Original Hebrew יגזלו1497 משׁד7699 יתום3490 ועל5764 עני6041 יחבלו׃2254
