Bibliotheca Sacra (July 1973) 223-34.
Copyright © 1973
by
The Widow, Orphan,
and the Poor
in
the Old Testament and
the
Extra-Biblical Literature
Richard D. Patterson
The time-honored thesis of conservative
scholarship, that the
Old
Testament gives at each stage of its formation an accurate
reflection of the cultural contexts of the area and
the era with which
it deals, has been increasingly demonstrated by
the results of present
day research.1 In turn, the study of the
histories, literatures, languages,
and religions of the Ancient Near East has brought
greater clarity
to the divinely inspired revelation of God.2
The Old Testament can
Richard D. Patterson, Associate
Professor of Ancient Histories and Languages,
[1]
See,
for example R. K. Harrison, Old Testament Times (
1970). The readers of
this journal are, of course, well acquainted with many
contributions
along this line, such as the recent series of articles by Gleason
Archer in Bibliotheca Sacra, CXXVII
(January-March, 1970), 3-25; (April-
June, 1970), 99-115; (July-September, 1970),
195-211; (October-December,
1970), 291-98; note also the remarks of H. H.
Rowley, The Old Testament
and Modern Study (
2 Note among the many contributions that
could be cited: R. K. Harrison,
Introduction to the Old Testament
(Grand Rapids, 1969), pp. 82-414; J. Bar-
ton
Payne, et al., New Perspectives on the Old Testament (Waco, TX,
1970);
as
well, the fine collections of articles in The Biblical Archaeologist Reader
(Garden City, NY), Vols. 1 and 2, should be mentioned.
Scores of articles
relative
to new light on the Old Testament have appeared, particularly in
scholarly
journals, many spawned by the pioneering efforts of W. F. Albright
whose
many contributions have forced Old Testament scholars to face the
value
of a more conservative approach to the Scriptures. See, for example, his
Archaeology, Historical Analogy and Early
Biblical Tradition (
LA, 1966), New Horizons in Biblical Research
(New York, 1966), "The
Impact of Archaeology on Biblical Research,
1966," New Directions in Biblical
Archaeology, ed. by David
Noel Freedman and Jonas C. Greenfield- (Garden
City, NY, 1971), etc.
In addition a veritable host of books has appeared with
regard
to archaeological light on the Scriptures. Many of them are written
with
the more general reading audience in mind, but are still of value for
the
scholar, for example, the Baker Studies in Biblical Archaeology series. For
further
details the reader is referred to the standard biblically oriented
texts, journals, and dictionaries on the Ancient Near
East.
224
/ Bibliotheca Sacra - July 1973
now be seen as part of a broader and intricately
interrelated cultural
milieu whose customs, institutions and linguistic and
literary pat-
terns were shared in large measure throughout the
Fertile Crescent.3
Nevertheless,
it must be quickly added that although the Old Testa-
ment partakes of that
international culture and even utilizes it in
the presentation of God's life giving message, its
concept of God,
its high ethical standards and its objective
verifiability make it dis-
tinctively unique among the
writings of the pre-Christian world.4
Despite the veritable mine of information drawn
from the
culture of the Ancient Near East that is readily
available, all too
little of that wealth of resource has been tapped by
present day
students of the Old Testament. Kitchen rightly
laments, "... Old
Testament
scholarship has made only superficial use of Ancient Near
Eastern data."5 This is particularly
true in the realm of linguistic
studies and even more true in the area of
literary comparisons.6 All
3 See, for instance, W.
L. Moran, "The Hebrew Language in Its Northwest
Semitic Background," The Bible and the
Ancient Near East, ed. by G. Ernest
Wright (Garden City, NY, 1965), pp. 59-84; Edward
F. Campbell, Jr., and
David Noel Freedman (eds.), The
Biblical Archaeologist Reader, No.3
(Garden City, NY, 1970); J. J. Finkelstein and
Moshe Greenberg (eds.),
Oriental and Biblical Studies
(
Babylonian Genesis
(2nd ed.;
Old Testament Parallels
(2nd ed.;
W. D. McHardy (eds.), Hebrew
and Semitic Studies (
Diringer
and S. P. Brock, "Words and Meanings in Early Hebrew Inscriptions,"
Words and Meanings,
ed. by Peter R. Ackroyd and Barnabas Lindars (
bridge,
1968), pp. 39-45. In addition, many- scholarly journals have supple-
mental
volumes that are devoted to biblical studies in relation to the Ancient
helpful;
note especially M. Noth and D. Winton Thomas (eds.) ,
Wisdom in
fact
that their basic theme is highly controversial, the many works of Cyrus
Gordon should probably also be mentioned, for
example, Before the Bible
(New York, 1962).
4 C. F. Whitley, The Genius of Ancient
Israel (
surveyed
the culture of ancient
East concludes, "It is true that from the
conquest of
age
Israelite sapiental thought was subjected to external
and environmental
influences,
but it still retained its individuality and developed in its own pecu-
liar
way…. It is... its moral and spiritual content which, more than any
other
feature, distinguishes Hebrew wisdom from that of neighbouring
peo-
ples" (pp. 150-151).
5 K. A. Kitchen, Ancient
Orient and Old Testament (
6 Among the better discussions, note E. A. Speiser, "The Wife-Sister Motif
in
the Patriarchal Narrative," Studies and Texts, Vol. I: Biblical and
Other
Studies,
ed. by Alexander Altmann (
The Widow, the Orphan, and the Poor / 225
too often these disciplines have been left to
liberal scholars, with
disastrous results.7 This is due to the
fact that such treatments
usually fail to distinguish literary form or
motif from theological
content or perspective. The readers of this
journal will no doubt
recall the words of Herbert M. Wolf:
If a culture supplies
the form, does it not also dictate the content,
the
very words used? Inspiration will be weakened unless a careful
distinction
is made between form and content. At this point, the
flexibility
of forms eases the dilemma somewhat. It seems logical
to
argue, however, that God would speak to His people through
contemporary
literary forms familiar to them, just as He used
contemporary
vocabulary and grammar. The human authors then
adapted
these forms under the inspiration of God.8
A case in point is the well-known literary motif
of the widow,
the orphan, and the poor. A decade has already
passed since F. C.
Fensham called attention to the ubiquitous
nature of this motif in
the Ancient Near East.9 While Fensham's
article gave an excellent
review of the available data from the ancient world,
it failed to see
the essential content and perspective of that
literary form as utilized
by the writers of the Old Testament. Drawing from Fensham's
article and other sources garnered from its
employment in royal
contexts, numerous examples of this motif may be
cited as back-
ground material for Old Testament study.
7 For example, Alexander Altmann (ed.), Biblical Motifs (
1966); Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis
(New York, 1966); Raphael Patai,
The Hebrew Goddess (New York, 1967);
Mary K. Wakeman,
"The Biblical Earth Monster in the Cosmological Combat
Myth,". Journal
of Biblical Literature, LXXXVIII (September, 1969), 313-20;
G. R. Driver, "Mythical Monsters in the Old
Testament," Studi onore
di
Giorgio Levi della Vida (
'Three Days and Three Nights' Motif in Jonah 2:
1," Journal of Biblical Liter-
ature,
LXXXVI (December, 1967), 446-50; Isaac M. Kikawada,
"Two Notes
on
Eve," Journal of Biblical Literature, XCI (March, 1972), 33-37; W.
E.
Staples, "Epic Motifs in Amos," Journal
of Near Eastern Studies, XXV (April,
1966), 106-12.
8 Herbert M. Wolf, "Implications of
Form Criticism for Old Testament
Studies," Bibliotheca Sacra, CXXVII
(October-December, 1970), 306-7.
9 F. Charles Fensham,
"Widow, Orphan, and the Poor in Ancient Near
Eastern Legal and Wisdom Literature," Journal
of Near Eastern Studies, XXI
(April, 1962), 129-39;
ment
Prophets," Vetus Testamentum
Supplements, VII (1960), 75-101, also
includes
in his discussion the relationship of this Old Testament motif to the
Semitic World but erroneously finds "that
in the prophets' concern for widows
and the fatherless there are quite obvious traces of a
Canaanite origin" (p. 83).
226/ Bibliotheca Sacra
- July 1973
In ancient
the poor is detailed in two well-known law codes,
that of Urukagina
of
the founder of the so-called third dynasty of
century B.C.10
The most famous of the law codes of
Hammurapi in the eighteenth century B.C., builds upon the con-
cepts of its Sumerian
precursors. In his Prologue, Hammurapi affirms
that the gods had called him,
misaram ina
matim To
make justice appear
ana supim
in the land,
raggam u senam
To
destroy the evil and wicked
ana gulluqim
(and so that)
dannum ensam
The strong might
not oppress
ana la habalim the weak.11
In
the Epilogue he adds that he had enacted these laws,
dannum ensam
So that the
strong might not oppress
ana la babalim the weak (and so as)
ekutam almattam
To give
justice to the orphaned
sutesurim (homeless) girl and to the widow.12
Throughout the Babylonian legal stipulations and
wisdom litera-
ture the care of the widow,
the orphan, and the poor is enjoined,
since the ideal king, as the living representative of
the god of justice,
the sun god Samas, is
expected to care for the oppressed and needy
elements of society.13
In ancient
the poor was the continual boast of the beneficent
king. Thus, Meri-
kare of the First
Intermediate Period is instructed by his father,
Khety III, that the good king does not oppress the
widow or confis-
cate the property of the
orphan.14 King Amenemhat of the Middle
10 Ibid., p. 130.
11 CH
Ia: 32-39; for the original
ed. see E. Bergmann, Codex Hammurabi:
Textus Primigenius (
12 CH
XXIVb: 59-62; for a valuable discussion of the
Mesopotamian legal
tradition,
see G. R. Driver and John C. Miles (eds.), The Babylonian Laws
(
13 Fensham, XXI, 130-32.
14 Ibid., XXI, 132.
The
Widow, the Orphan, and the Poor / 227
Kingdom's
twelfth dynasty lays emphasis on concern for the poor.15
Ramesses III
of the twentieth dynasty boasts that he has given
special attention to justice for the widow and
the orphan.16 Fenshaw
well remarks that
The parallel trend
between Mesopotamian policy of the protection
of
the weak and that of
of
kings and rulers and as an important part of the duty of the
sun-god.
As in
twined
in
SYRO-PALESTINE
As at either end of the
city of
is attested. Two cases of royal figures are well
known. In the Aqhat
Epic,
Dan'el the king is described in the following
fashion:
apnk dnil
mt rpi Thereupon Dan'el the Raphaman ...
. . . picks
himself up
ytsu ytb
bap tgr he sits before the gate
. . . . . .
ydn dn
almnt he
judges the cause of the widow(s)
ytpt tpt
ytm he
adjudicates the case of the
fatherless18
In
another epic story, King Keret, who has fallen
seriously ill, is
confronted by his grasping son with these words:
ltdn
dn 'almnt You did not judge the
cause of the
widow,
lttpt
tpt qsr nps
you did not
adjudicate the case of
the wretched,
ltdy
tsm 'l dl you
did not drive out them that
preyed upon the
poor;
lpnk
ltslhm ytm you did not feed the orphan before
you
bd
kslk 'almnt or the widow behind
you.
15 Ibid.,
XXI, 132-33. This high ethical idea is further demonstrated in an
inscription
of a steward of Amenemhat's successor, Sesostris I. The steward,
one Montuwser, makes his boast:
ink
it n n mhw I was a father to the
orphans,
sm h'rwt
a
helper of the widows.
For further details see William C. Hayes, The
Scepter of Egypt (
1960),
I, 182, 299-300.
16 Fensham XXI, 133.
17 Ibid., XXI, 133-34.
18 2 Aqht
V:4-8; for the text, see Cyrus H. Gordon, Ugaritic Tetxbook
(
228/ Bibliotheca Sacra
- July 1973
km
'agt rs mdw
Since
you've become a brother of
the sickbed
'anst rs zbln
a
companion of the bed of
suffering,
rd
lmlk 'amlk come
down from the kingship
I will be king
ldrktk 'atb
I
will sit in your authority!19
While further parallels as to the care of the
oppressed of society
from other places and cultures of the
forward, enough has been cited to demonstrate
that a concern for
the widow, the orphan, and the poor was the
constant claim of the
ideal king.20
THE OLD TESTAMENT
In turning to the Old Testament, one finds that
the same motif
is utilized and indeed is so often mentioned that
the conduct, deemed
meritorious because it was the particular
prerogative of the ideal,
good shepherd type of king, became the prescribed
way of life in
the Israelite social structure.
THE PENTATEUCH
It is interesting to note that a concern for the
widow, the
orphan, and the poor is permanently woven into the
fabric of those
crucial sections dealing with the covenant made
between God, the
sovereign, and His people,
Sinai
and its renewal before entering the
Exodus
22:21-24; 23:6, the widow, the orphan, and the poor fall
under the protection of God Himself. This is
reiterated in Deuter-
onomy, where God is
represented as the supreme judge who has
the interest of these elements of society at heart
(
is true not only with regard to the set feasts of
14)
but in the special regulations of
life, as well (Deut.
19 Gordon, Ibid., p. 194, 127:45-63.
20 Thus mention could be
made of the practice of levirate marriage for
widows,
well attested from many places in the Ancient Near East, not only
among
the Babylonians and Assyrians but also with the Hurrians
and even
the
Hittites in
Nuzu
Tablets," The Biblical Archaeologist, III (February, 1940), 7-9
(re-
printed
in The Biblical Archaeologist Reader, Vol. II, ed. by Edward F.
Campbell, Jr. and David Noel Freedman [Garden
City, NY, 1964] pp. 129-30;
and O. R. Gurney, The Hittites (2nd ed.;
21 For an interesting defense of the
historic trustworthiness of Deuteronomy,
see Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King,
(Grand Rapids, 1963).
The Widow, the Orphan,
and the Poor / 229
Deuteronomy
in which the climax of the oath of ratification occurs
(26:8-19),
the God of redemption invokes the law of charity
upon His people so that they might continuously
remember the
magnitude of His redemptive grace toward them. In
Deuteronomy
27:19
this provision is reinforced with a curse:
Cursed
be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger,
fatherless,
and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen.
THE
POETICAL BOOKS
In the book of Job, the evil man is described as
one who op-
presses the widow, the orphan, and the poor (14:
1-4, 14, 21). In
the third round of discourses between Job and his
"comforters,"
Eliphaz sin language (quite reminiscent of the
young prince in the
Keret Epic)22
accuses Job as follows: "Thou hast sent Widows away
empty, and the arms of the fatherless have been
broken."23 In his
defense, Job vows that such has not been the
case. Indeed, in his
final summation and protestation of his innocence at
the end of the
three rounds of discourses, Job again pleads and
swears under oath
that he is free of any such evil practices (29:7-7;
31:16-17, 21-23).
The Psalmist likewise extols the God of triumph
because of His
righteous character with this same motif (Ps.
68:1-5). Thus he says
of Him:
A father of the
fatherless,
and a judge of the widows,
is
God in his holy habitation.24
In
the eighty-second Psalm, God is declared to be the righteous judge
who prescribes justice for all the downtrodden:
Defend the poor and
fatherless:
do justice to the afflicted and needy.
Deliver the poor and
needy:
rid them out of the hand of the wicked.25
22 This does not
necessarily demand the acceptance of the view of Tur-
Sinai and Pope on the reading of Job 36: 17; see
Marvin H. Pope, Job in
The Anchor Bible
(Garden City, 1965), p. 234. Thus, Pope (p. 231) translates
translates
the verse in question,
But the case of the
wicked you did not judge,
The orphan's justice you belied.
23 Job 22:9.
24 Psalms 68:5.
25 Ps. 82:3-4; Mitchell Dahood,
Psalms 11, in The Anchor Bible
(Garden
City, 1968), p. 269, properly vindicates the
reading of the Masoretic Text
230
/ Bibliotheca Sacra - July 1973
In the book of Proverbs, the care of the
downtrodden of society
is often mentioned. Thus, Solomon affirms that to
oppress the needy
is to bring reproach upon God Himself:
He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth
his Maker:
but he that honoureth
him hath mercy on the poor.26
On
the other hand, he who alleviates the needs of the poor shall be
blessed of God.27 Again, he asserts that the
Lord watches over the
land of the widow who might otherwise be helpless
before proud,
grasping men (
24:22),28 God is depicted as the champion of (1) the poor and
(2)
the orphan:
(I) Rob not the poor, because he is poor:
neither
oppress the afflicted in the gate:
For
the Lord will plead their cause,
and
spoil the soul of those that spoiled them.29
(2) Remove not the old
landmark;
and
enter not into the fields of the fatherless:
For
their redeemer is mighty;
he
shall plead their cause with thee.30
In
the further words of Solomon as recorded by the committee of
Hezekiah,
the relation of the ideal king to the needs of the oppressed
of society is clearly indicated:
The king that
faithfully judgeth the poor,
his throne shall be established for ever.31
THE PROPHETS
The cause of the widow, the orphan, and the poor
is not
neglected by the prophets of
betrayed their wickedness and lack of
God-oriented perspective in
their treatment of the widow, the orphan, and the
poor (Isa.
10:1-2;
Jer. 7:4-16). Typical of this use of the motif are
the
words of Ezekiel:
26 Prov. 14:31.
27 Prov. 22:9.
28 For this term, see Gleason Archer, Jr., A Survey of Old Testament In-
troduction
(
Amenemope,
see the discussion of William McKane, Proverbs
(
1970),
pp. 371-74.
29 Prov. 22:22-23.
30 Prov. 23:10-11.
31 Prov. 29:14.
The
Widow, the Orphan, and the Poor / 231
Behold, the princes of
to
shed blood. In thee have they set light by father and mother: in
the
midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in
thee
have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.32
Feinberg
appropriately remarks:
Detail by detail the
said and sordid tale unfolds. Parents were
lightly
esteemed and robbed of the honor due them, even though
honor
to father and mother was one of the most frequently stated
commands
of the law (cf. Exodus
This relationship ultimately underlies the
proper submission of
citizens
to their rulers. If parents were slighted, the sojourner could
not
hope for consideration. Him they oppressed, forgetting that they
were
formerly sojourners in
without
human protectors, the fatherless and the widow, were
wronged,
the wicked forgetting that God had made Himself their
special
and sufficient Defender.33
True righteousness, a living relationship with
the Lord, would
be evidenced in a type of
conduct that reflected His high ethical
standards:
Thus saith the Lord; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and
deliver
the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no
wrong,
do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow,
neither
shed innocent blood in this place.34
Because
of her sins
outstretched hand (Isa.
widowed (Zech. 7:8-14 ). Jeremiah lamented:
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how
is she
become
as a widow!
Our
inheritance is turned to stangers, our houses to
aliens, we
are
orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.35
But
thanks be to God! The Just One would remember her
cause.
Once
He had pled:
Wash you, make you
clean; put away the evil of your doings from
before
mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment,
relieve
the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
Come now, and let us
reason together, saith the Lord: though your
sins
be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be
red
like crimson, they shall be as wool.36
32 Ezek. 22:6-7; cf. 25, 29.
33 Charles L. Feinberg, The Prophecy of Ezekiel (
34 Jer. 22:3; cf. 7:4-7.
35 Lam. 1:1; 5:2-3.
36 Isa.l:16-18.
232 / Bibliotheca Sacra
- July 1973
Now
he would promise that in a future day a redeemed
be restored from her spiritual widowhood:
Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be
thou con-
founded;
for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget
the
shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the
reproach of
thy
widowhood any more. For thy Maker is thine husband;
the
Lord of hosts is his
name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel;
the
God of the whole earth shall he be called.37
Throughout the Old Testament, then, the cause of
the widow,
the orphan, and the poor is particularly enjoined
upon
befitting a redeemed people who are entrusted with
the character
and standards of their Redeemer. Even in the last
book the theme
is utilized in pointing to the coming ministry of
the forerunner of
Messiah
and of Messiah Himself and of the righteousness that would
then be inaugurated (Mal. 3:1-6).
It is not surprising, therefore, that in the New
Testament (though
this is beyond the scope of this article) not only
is the cause of the
poor frequently championed, but also the widow is
singled out for
special comment: for giving all that she had,
right up to the last
mite (Lk. 21: 1-4; Mk.
in the early church who were to be cared for and
honored as models
of great piety and godliness (Acts 6:1;
in the Old Testament, genuine godliness was to be
seen in demon-
strated activity:
Pure religion and
undefiled before God and the Father is this, To
visit
the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep him-
self
unspotted from the world.38
But, one asks, what is the reason for the
prominence of this
motif? Why the widow, the orphan, and the poor? In
purely human
terms, it is perhaps understandable that the weak and
the helpless
of society who were so easily victimized would be
the special objects
of concern by an ideally righteous king.39
Yet, this writer suggests
that the raison d' etre
of this motif rests much deeper than on a
purely naturalistic basis.
37 Isa.
54:4-5; see also Hos. 14:1-4 for the prophecy of
God's future bless-
ing upon
38 James 1:27.
39 Note Jesus' warning in the Gospels: Matt.
23:14; Mark 12:40; Luke
20:47; one may also recall Andromache's
mournful lament with regard to
her
widowhood and to her now fatherless son in Homer's Iliad xxii. 586-617.
The Widow, the Orphan, and the Poor / 233
It has been noted that the motif is a common one
throughout
the Ancient Near East, and a very early one at
that. Without resorting
to allegorization or to
over-spiritualization, one wonders if it is too
much to suggest that its early predominance in the
not have been a primeval reflection of God's own
self-disclosure
as being the Redeemer of the helpless. Its very
antiquity may be
accounted for because it speaks of man's helpless
position before
God right from the beginning. Its localization in the
be occasioned by direct contact within the area of
God's revelation.
In that light, it is significant that the theme
of the widow, the
orphan, and the poor is an integral part of the
covenant stipulations
of the Old Testament wherein
resented as the vassal to her sovereign God. It
is still more significant
that within that treaty structure the motif is
wedded to the redemptive
work of God; it is He who has come to the aid of
those who have
no strength. As such, it forms the basis for a
similar conduct on the
part of His redeemed people.40
A helpless mankind has existed since the fall;
it is still the
same today. Like the widow, a lost world lies prey
to the enemy's
evil influence. Except aided by divine redemptive
intervention, it
is powerless to help itself despite all of its
advanced technology
and knowledge (Rom. 3:23ff.; 5:6-8).
Spiritually speaking, the Christian need never
fear widowhood.
The
church is ever Christ's bride (Eph.
being readied for that great marriage feast before
her millennial co-
reigning with Him (Rev. 19:7-9). The honored
position of the
bride here below is but a foretaste of her eternal felicitude. The
poetess puts it most beautifully:
The Bride eyes not her
garment,
But her dear
Bridegroom's face;
I will not gaze at
glory,
But
on my King of grace.
Not at the crown He giveth,
But on His pierced
hand,
The lamb is all the
glory
Of
Immanuel's
land.41
As with the orphan, mankind outside of Jesus
Christ has
no surety of inheritance, no living relationship
with the heavenly
40 Deut.24:17-18.
41 Anne Ross Cousin, "The
Sands of Time."
234 / Bibliotheca Sacra
- July 1973
Father, at all. But Christ, God's
unique Son,42 by His redemptive
work on
God's
sovereign will, in accordance with His holy nature, had
ordained before the foundation of the world (Rom.
Experientially, Christians are not cut off from
their source of
strength and succor. Jesus Himself has said,
"I will not leave you as
orphans."43 Truly, that other
Comforter, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit
of Truth, the enabler of genuine Christian living,
has been given and
has taken up His abode in the Christian that he
might be an effective
ambassador of Him who "hath given to us the ministry
of recon-
ciliation."44
As with the poor, the stranger, the outcast of
society, the un-
believer has no wealth, no true enjoyment of
life, for in the ultimate
sense there can be no real life apart from the source
of life, Jesus
Christ,
the life giver (John 10: 9-1 0).
In his Christian experience, the believer is to
live a life that is
reflective of that one who "though he was
rich, yet for your sakes
he became poor, that ye through his poverty might
be rich."45 His
is to be an abundant life (John
brought him into a wealthy place (Ps. 66:12b) in
which all the
riches of His grace and power are available to him
(John
However, the Christian is to remember that there
is still a
lost mankind which stands, spiritually speaking,
widowed, orphaned
and destitute of the family of God. He who is the
God of the widow,
the orphan, and the poor, who redeemed a helpless
Christian
is His ambassador (Gal.
21).
Moses' solemn challenge is still ours today:
Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, father-
less,
and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen.46
42 Note the marginal
rendering of the Greek monogennes in the New
Ameri-
can Standard Bible at John 3: 16.
43 Greek orphanous,
John 14: 18.
44 2 Cor.5:18.
45 2 Cor.
8:9.
46 Deut. 27: 19.
This
material is cited with gracious permission from:
www.dts.edu
Please report any errors to Ted
Hildebrandt at: