Proverbs 31:9

Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

31:1-9 When children are under the mother's eye, she has an opportunity of fashioning their minds aright. Those who are grown up, should often call to mind the good teaching they received when children. The many awful instances of promising characters who have been ruined by vile women, and love of wine, should warn every one to avoid these evils. Wine is to be used for want or medicine. Every creature of God is good, and wine, though abused, has its use. By the same rule, due praise and consolation should be used as cordials to the dejected and tempted, not administered to the confident and self-sufficient. All in authority should be more carefully temperate even than other men; and should be protectors of those who are unable or afraid to plead their own cause. Our blessed Lord did not decline the bitterest dregs of the cup of sorrow put into his hands; but he puts the cup of consolation into the hands of his people, and causes those to rejoice who are in the deepest distress.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In contrast with the two besetting sins of Eastern monarchs stands their one great duty, to give help to those who had no other helper.

Such as are appointed to destruction - literally, "children of bereavement," with the sense, either, as in the text, of those "destined to be bereaved of life or goods," or of "bereaved or fatherless children."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8, 9. Open … cause—Plead for those who cannot plead for themselves, as the orphan, stranger, &c. (compare Ps 72:12; Isa 1:17).

appointed to destruction—who are otherwise ruined by their oppressors (compare Pr 29:14, 16).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Open thy mouth, judge righteously,.... Having heard the cause, pronounce a righteous sentence; deliver it freely and impartially, with all readiness and boldness, not caring for the censures of wicked and unjust men;

and plead the cause of the poor and needy; who are oppressed by the rich, cannot plead for themselves, nor fee others to plead for them; do thou do it freely and faithfully. Thus as Lemuel's mother cautions him against women and wine, she advises him to do the duties of his office in administering impartial justice to all, and particularly in being the advocate and judge of the indigent and distressed.

Geneva Study Bible

Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. plead the cause of] Rather, minister judgement to, R.V. Lit judge.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - Plead the cause; rather, minister judgment, or do right; act in your official capacity so that the effect shall be substantial justice (comp. Zechariah 8:16). Proverbs 31:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

8 Open thy mouth for the dumb,

   For the right of all the children of leaving;

9 Open thy mouth, judge righteously,

   And do right to the poor and needy.

He is called dumb who suffers the infirmity of dumbness, as עוּר and פּסּח, Job 29:15, is he who suffers the infirmity of blindness or lameness, not here figuratively; at the same time, he who, on account of his youth, or on account of his ignorance, or from fear, cannot speak before the tribunal for himself (Fleischer). With ל the dat. commodi (lxx after Lagarde, μογιλάλῳ; Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, ἀλάλῳ; the Venet. after Gebhardt, βωβῷ) אל, of the object aimed at, interchanges, as e.g., 1 Kings 19:3; 2 Kings 7:7, אל־נפשׁם, for the preservation of their life, or for the sake of their life, for it is seldom that it introduces the object so purely as here. And that an infin. such as חלוף should stand as a subst. occurs proportionally seldomer in Heb. (Isaiah 4:4; Psalm 22:7; cf. with ה of the artic., Numbers 4:12; Psalm 66:9) than it does in Arab. בּני חלוף in the same way as בּני־עני, 5b, belongs to the Arab. complexion of this proverb, but without its being necessary to refer to the Arab. in order to fix the meaning of these two words. Hitzig explains after khalf, to come after, which further means "to have the disadvantage," in which Zckler follows him; but this verb in Arab. does not mean ὑστερεῖν (ὑστερεῖσθαι), we must explain "sons of him that remains behind," i.e., such as come not forward, but remain behind ('an) others. Mhlau goes further, and explains, with Schultens and Vaihinger: those destitute of defence, after (Arab.) khalafahu he is ranked next to him, and has become his representative - a use of the word foreign to the Heb. Still less is the rendering of Gesenius justified, "children of inheritance" equals children left behind, after khallafa, to leave behind; and Luther, "for the cause of all who are left behind," by the phrase (Arab.) khallfany'an 'awnih, he has placed me behind his help, denied it to me, for the Kal of the verb cannot mean to abandon, to leave. And that בני חלוף means the opposers of the truth, or of the poor, or the litigious person, the quarrelsome, is perfectly inadmissible, since the Kal חלוף cannot be equivalent to (Arab.) khilaf, the inf. of the 3rd conj., and besides, the gen. after דּין always denotes those in whose favour, not those against whom it is passed; the latter is also valid against Ralbag's "sons of change," i.e., who say things different from what they think; and Ahron b. Josef's "sons of changing," viz., the truth into lies. We must abide by the meaning of the Heb. חלף, "to follow after, to change places, pass away." Accordingly, Fleischer understands by חלוף, the going away, the dying, viz., of parents, and translates: eorum qui parentibus orbati sunt. In another way Rashi reaches the same sense: orphans deprived of their helper. But the connection בני חלף requires that we make those who are intended themselves the subject of חלוף. Rightly Ewald, Bertheau, Kamphausen, compare Isaiah 2:18 (and Psalm 90:5., this with questionable right), and understand by the sons of disappearance those whose inherited lot, whose proper fate, is to disappear, to die, to perish (Symmachus: πάντων υἱῶν ἀποιχομένων; Jerome: omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt). It is not men in general as children of frailty that are meant (Kimchi, Meri, Immanuel, Euchel, and others), after which the Venet. τῶν υἱῶν τοῦ μεταβάλλειν (i.e., those who must exchange this life for another), but such as are on the brink of the abyss. צדק in שׁפט־צדק is not equivalent to בּצדק, but is the accus. of the object, as at Zechariah 8:16, decide justice, i.e., so that justice is the result of thy judicial act; cf. Knobel on Deuteronomy 1:16. ודּין is imper., do right to the miserable and the poor; cf. Psalm 54:3 with Jeremiah 22:16; Jeremiah 5:28. That is a king of a right sort, who directs his high function as a judge, so as to be an advocate [procurator] for the helpless of his people.