29:7-17 All sorts of people paid respect to Job, not only for the dignity of his rank, but for his personal merit, his prudence, integrity, and good management. Happy the men who are blessed with such gifts as these! They have great opportunities of honouring God and doing good, but have great need to watch against pride. Happy the people who are blessed with such men! it is a token for good to them. Here we see what Job valued himself by, in the day of his prosperity. It was by his usefulness. He valued himself by the check he gave to the violence of proud and evil men. Good magistrates must thus be a restraint to evil-doers, and protect the innocent; in order to this, they should arm themselves with zeal and resolution. Such men are public blessings, and resemble Him who rescues poor sinners from Satan. How many who were ready to perish, now are blessing Him! But who can show forth His praises? May we trust in His mercy, and seek to imitate His truth, justice, and love.

Verse 12. - Because I delivered the poor that cried (compare the Instructions of Amen-em-hat: "Because I have made the afflicted ones free from their afflictions, so that their cries are heard no more" ('Records of the Past,' vol. 2 p. 12). And again the Inscription of Ameni-Amenemha: "No little child have I injured; no widow have I oppressed; no fisherman have I hindered; no shepherd have I detained; no foreman have I taken from his gang to employ him in forced labour" (ibid., vol. 12:63). And the fatherless, and him that had none to help him (compare what is said of the ideal king in Psalm 72:12-14," He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall sabre the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight"). Championship of the poor was anciently regarded as characteristic of the wise, good, strong ruler.

Because I delivered the poor that cried,.... This honour and esteem he had not because of his grandeur and riches, because of his worldly wealth and substance, but because of the goodness of his disposition, and because of the good he did to men, his acts of pity and compassion to the poor, and of the justice he did to all men; the poor and the afflicted, when they cried to him for help, he delivered them out of the hands of their oppressors:

and the fatherless; the care and defence of which belongs to judges and civil magistrates, see Psalm 82:1;

and him that had none to help him; as the poor and fatherless seldom have; there is power on the side of the oppressors of them, but they have few or none to take their parts, and to be their comforters, Ecclesiastes 4:1; in these instances Job imitated God, and was a follower of him, as a dear child of his; who, when this and the other poor man cries unto him, he hears, saves, and delivers out of all their troubles; he is the helper, yea, the father of the fatherless, and the judge of the widow; and, when there is no help from men, he is a present help in times of need.

12-17. The grounds on which Job was praised (Job 29:11), his helping the afflicted (Ps 72:12) who cried to him for help, as a judge, or as one possessed of means of charity. Translate: "The fatherless who had none to help him."

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