if I have raised my hand against the fatherless, because I saw my help in the gate,
Eliphaz had particularly charged Job with unmercifulness to the poor (Job 22:6, etc.): Thou hast withholden bread from the hungry, stripped the naked of their clothing, and sent widows away empty. One would think he could not have been so very positive and express in his charge unless there had been some truth in it, some ground, for it; and yet it appears, by Job's...
Commenting on Job 31:16-23
Then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade,.... With which the upper part of it is connected; let it be disjointed from it, or rot and drop off from it; a dreadful calamity this, to lose an arm and the use of it, to have it full off immediately, as a judgment from God, and in just retaliation for lifting up an hand or...
when--that is, "because." I saw--that I might calculate on the "help" of a powerful party in the court of justice--("gate"), if I should be summoned by the injured fatherless.