(For from my youth he was brought up with me, as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother’s womb;)
The verse belongs to Job's defense and protestation of his moral integrity, in which he maintains his innocence before his friends and invites judgment upon himself if his conduct is stained by wrongdoing. It presents his lifelong care for the vulnerable as the substance of that defense, for from his youth he treated a fatherless child as if raised alongside him by a father, taking the orphan into his own household, and he guided and cared for the widow from her earliest days and birth. That care was lifelong and personal rather than distant, with the orphan grown up with him as with a father and tended from birth as part of his own house.
He did not trust in his riches nor rejoice or take pride because his wealth was great, but trusted in the living God who gives power to get wealth and regarded his wealth only as a means of blessing the poor, the needy, the fatherless, and the widow whom he cared for and guided from his youth. The verse thus helps define what makes a person truly honest, for mere freedom from liability to others and owing no one anything does not of itself make one honest. True honesty is integrity and candor and dazzling whiteness of character shown in an upright life, which is much stronger proof of honesty than merely paying debts to fellow men. Yet his defense is not the final measure of his character, for after God questions him he recognizes that he spoke without understanding and repents.
The verse belongs to Job's defense and protestation of his moral integrity, in which he maintains his innocence before his friends and invites judgment upon himself if his conduct is stained by wrongdoing. It presents his lifelong care for the vulnerable as the substance of that defense, for from his youth he treated a fatherless child as if raised alongside him by a father, taking the orphan into his own household, and he guided and cared for the widow from her earliest days and birth. That care was lifelong and personal rather than distant, with the orphan grown up with him as with a father and tended from birth as part of his own house.
He did not trust in his riches nor rejoice or take pride because his wealth was great, but trusted in the living God who gives power to get wealth and regarded his wealth only as a means of blessing the poor, the needy, the fatherless, and the widow whom he cared for and guided from his youth. The verse thus helps define what makes a person truly honest, for mere freedom from liability to others and owing no one anything does not of itself make one honest. True honesty is integrity and candor and dazzling whiteness of character shown in an upright life, which is much stronger proof of honesty than merely paying debts to fellow men. Yet his defense is not the final measure of his character, for after God questions him he recognizes that he spoke without understanding and repents.