Job 31:17

17 Have I been stingy with my food and refused to share it with orphans?

Job 31:17 Meaning and Commentary

Job 31:17

Or have eaten my morsel myself alone
Though he had kept no doubt a plentiful table in the time of his prosperity suitable to his circumstances, yet had been no luxurious person, and therefore calls provisions a "morsel"; however, be it what it would, more or less, he did not eat it alone; what he had for himself the poor had a share of it with him, and the same he ate himself he gave to them:

and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof:
meaning the poor fatherless: for as to the rich fatherless, it was no charity to feed them: this verse contradicts the charge exhibited against him, ( Job 22:7 ) .

Job 31:17 In-Context

15 For God created both me and my servants. He created us both in the womb.
16 “Have I refused to help the poor, or crushed the hopes of widows?
17 Have I been stingy with my food and refused to share it with orphans?
18 No, from childhood I have cared for orphans like a father, and all my life I have cared for widows.
19 Whenever I saw the homeless without clothes and the needy with nothing to wear,
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