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The text is part of Job's noble vindication of himself from a charge of hypocrisy and impiety. So far was Job from considering the poor as made for him, so far from neglecting and oppressing them, that his wealth and its attendant influence prompted him to become their advocate, to befriend the friendless, and to attempt the relief of every species of human distress.

I. THE PATERNAL CHARACTER, AS IT RESPECTS THE POOR. It includes —

1. A real and an affectionate concern for the poor. So far was Job from considering the poor as made for his aggrandisement, to do him homage, to wait his nod, that he saw and respected himself in them; made their cause his own, entered into their afflictions, and had a heart to feel for all their wants and sorrows.

2. Well-digested schemes, and well-directed endeavours, to promote, under God, their temporal and eternal good. There can be no true charity, among the affluent, without liberality. This fallen world opens a widely extended field for the exercise of every compassionate and benevolent principle in the heart. The paternal character has a relation to the bodies of the poor, as that of a father to the bodies of his immediate offspring. More important are the souls of the poor.

II. RECOMMEND AND URGE THE PATERNAL CHARACTER, AS IT RESPECTS THE POOR. An argument might be brought from the very constitution of human nature. A principle of self-love is common to us all. The paternal character is more Divine, more Godlike, than anything else within the reach and ability of man. It makes that very use of talents and advantages which God designed. The character enters into the main and substantial part of Christianity. Solid comfort and felicity will ever result from it.

(N. Hill.)

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KJV: I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.

WEB: I was a father to the needy. The cause of him who I didn't know, I searched out.