Job 31:17

17 (or) if I alone ate my morsel, and a fatherless child ate not thereof;

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 Whether he, that wrought also him, made not me in the womb, and one God formed me in the womb? (Did not he, who made me in the womb, make not also them? yea, the one God formed each of us in the womb.)

16 If I denied to poor men that, that they would, and if I made the eyes of a widow to abide; (If I denied to the poor what they needed, or if I made the eyes of a widow to have despair;)

17 (or) if I alone ate my morsel, and a fatherless child ate not thereof;

18 for merciful doing increased with me, (or was granted me,) from my young childhood, and it went out of my mother's womb with me;

19 if I despised a man passing forth by me, for he had not a cloth (because he had no cloak), and a poor man without (any) covering;