Revised Standard Version encloses this verse in parentheses to indicate that it is out of place. Dhorme, New English Bible, and Moffatt put it between verses 3 and 4. New Jerusalem Bible places it after verse 8 but follows it with verse 12. Pope puts it after verse 3 and follows it with verse 21. Good News Translation and many other modern translations leave white space between verses 8 and 9 to indicate a shift in thought. Certainly there is a shift in the subject: from verse 5 to verse 8 it has been the poor, but in verse 9 it is the wicked, although in verse 10 the subject is again the poor.

There are those who snatch the fatherless child from the breast: in Hebrew verse 9 has “they” as subject, which Revised Standard Version translates There are those. If verse 9 began with “They,” as in verses 6, 7, and 8, the reader would wrongly assume “They” to mean the poor, and the sense would be contradictory. Unfortunately King James Version does just that. Good News Translation replaces “They” in Hebrew with “Evil men.” New International Version avoids supplying a different subject, by translating the verse with passive verbs: “The fatherless child is snatched from the breast; the infant of the poor is seized for a debt.” This is just as much a modification as supplying a new subject. Snatch translates the same verb used in verse 3, where it was translated “seize” (Revised Standard Version) and “steal” (Good News Translation). Fatherless child translates a noun often rendered in English as “orphan” (see New English Bible), but the reference is specifically to a male child who has become fatherless. Breast is a figure in which a part stands for the whole; it means the mother of the child. The child is snatched from its widowed mother, as the next line goes on to say, in payment for a loan. Therefore Good News Translation is correct in translating “make slaves of fatherless infants.” The line may also be rendered, for example, “The wicked steal an orphan boy from his mother’s breast” or “Evil people will take a child who is nursing away from its mother.”

And take in pledge the infant of the poor: for take in pledge see comments on 22.6. The Hebrew is literally “take as pledge upon the poor.” Some interpreters change the vowels of the preposition “upon” to get “suckling,” a nursing infant, which gives a good parallel with line a and appears to be the basis for Revised Standard Version. Line b is parallel in meaning to line a and does not refer to a different child, but rather makes clear the reason for line a. Bible en français courant and Biblia Dios Habla Hoy follow a suggestion which gives “mantle” or “coat.” However, the poor described here have no such clothes to give as a pledge, and so this is inappropriate. It may be best to transpose the lines of verse 9 so that the reason clause comes first; for example, “They lend money to the poor, and when the poor cannot repay, they take away their children; they even snatch a fatherless baby from its mother’s breast.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .