Job 31:32

The stranger did not lodge in the street: but I opened my doors to the traveller.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(32) I opened my doors to the traveller.—The manners of Genesis 19:2-3, Judges 19:20-21, if not the incidents there recorded, are here implied. “The traveller” is literally the road or way: i.e., the wayfarer.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

31:24-32 Job protests, 1. That he never set his heart upon the wealth of this world. How few prosperous professors can appeal to the Lord, that they have not rejoiced because their gains were great! Through the determination to be rich, numbers ruin their souls, or pierce themselves with many sorrows. 2. He never was guilty of idolatry. The source of idolatry is in the heart, and it corrupts men, and provokes God to send judgments upon a nation. 3. He neither desired nor delighted in the hurt of the worst enemy he had. If others bear malice to us, that will not justify us in bearing malice to them. 4. He had never been unkind to strangers. Hospitality is a Christian duty, 1Pe 4:9.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The stranger did not lodge in the street - This is designed to illustrate the sentiment in the previous verse, and to express his consciousness that he had showed the most generous hospitality.

But I opened my doors to the traveler - Margin, or way. The word used here ארח 'ôrach means properly way, path, road; but it also denotes those who travel on such a way; see Job 6:19, "The troops of Tema looked," Hebrew ארח תימא têymâ' 'ôrach - the ways, or paths of Tema; that is, those who traveled in those paths. Vulgate here, viatori. Septuagint, "To everyone that came" - παντί ἐλθόντι panti elthonti. This was one of the methods of hospitality - the central and crowning virtue among the Arabs to this day, and among the Orientals in all ages. Among the boasts of hospitality, showing the place which this virtue had in their estimation, and the methods by which it was practiced, we may refer to such expressions as the following: "I occupy the public way with my tent;" that is, to every traveler without distinction, my tent is open and my table is spread. "He makes the public path the place for the cords of his tent;" that is, he fixed the pins and cords of his tent in the midst of the public highway, so that every traveler might enter. These examples are quoted by Schultens from the Hamasa. Another beautiful example may be taken from the same collection of Arabic poems. I give the Latin translation of Schultens:

Quam saepe latratum imitanti viatori, cui resonabat echo

Suscitavi ignem, cujus lignum luculentum

Properusque surrexi ad eum, ut praedae mihi loco esset,

Prae metu ne populus mens eum ante me occuparet.

That is, "How often to the traveler, imitating the bark of the dog, and the echo of whose voice was heard, have I kindled a fire, the shining wood of which I quick raised up to him, as one would hasten to the prey, in fear lest someone of my own people should anticipate me in the privileges and rites of hospitality." The allusion to the imitation of the barking of a dog here, refers to the custom of travelers at night, who make this noise when they need a place of rest. This sound is responded to by the dogs which watch around the tents of their masters, and the sound is the signal for a general rush to show hospitality to the stranger. Burckhardt, speaking of the inhabitants of the Houran - the country east of the Jordan, and south of Damascus, says, "A traveler may alight at any house he pleases; a mat will be immediately spread for him, coffee made, and a breakfast or dinner set before him. In entering a village it has often happened to me, that several persons presented themselves, each begging that I would lodge at his house. It is a point of honor with the host never to receive the smallest return from a guest. Besides the private habitations, which offer to every traveler a secure night's shelter, there is in every village the Medhafe of the Sheikh, where all strangers of decent appearance are received and entertained. It is the duty of the Sheikh to maintain this Medhafe, which is like a tavern, with the difference that the host himself pays the bill. The Sheikh has public allowance to defray these expenses, and hence a man of the Houran, intending to travel about for a fortnight never thinks of putting a single para in his pocket; he is sure of being every where well received, and of living better, perhaps, than at his own home." Travels in Syria, pp. 294, 295.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

32. traveller—literally, "way," that is, wayfarers; so expressed to include all of every kind (2Sa 12:4).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The stranger; or, traveller as it follows.

Did not lodge in the street; but in my house, according to the laws of hospitality, and the usage of those times, when there were no public inns provided for the conveniency of such persons: see Genesis 18:3 19:2 Judges 19:15,21.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The stranger did not lodge in the street,.... By a stranger is not meant an unconverted man, that is a stranger to God and godliness, to Christ, and the way of salvation by him, to the Spirit of God and spiritual things, nor a good man, who is a stranger and pilgrim on earth; but one that is out of his nation and country, and at a distance from it, whether a good man or a bad man; these Job would not suffer to lie in the streets in the night season, exposed to the air and the inclemencies of it; see Judges 19:15;

but I opened my doors to the traveller; even all the doors of his house, to denote his great liberality, that as many as would might enter it; and this was done by himself, or, however, by his order; and some think that it signifies that he was at his door, waiting and watching for travellers to invite them in, as Abraham and Lot, Genesis 18:1; or his doors were opened "to the way" (i): as it may be rendered, to the roadside; his house was built by the wayside; or, however, the doors which lay towards that side were thrown open for travellers to come in at as they pleased, and when they would; so very hospitable and kind to strangers and travellers was Job, and so welcome were they to his house and the entertainment of it, see Hebrews 13:2.

(i) "ad semitam seu viam", Mercerus; "versus viam", Piscator, Michaelis; Ben Gersom.

Geneva Study Bible

The stranger did not lodge in the street: but I opened my doors to the traveller.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

32. to the traveller] The word might mean to the way, the street; the general sense is the same. The verse confirms Job’s universal hospitality and liberality.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 32. - The stranger did not lodge in the street; i.e. "I did not suffer any stranger who came under my notice to lodge in the street, but, like Abraham (Genesis 18:2-8), went out to him, and invited him in, to partake of my hospitality." This is still the practice of Arab sheikhs in Syria, Palestine, and the adjacent countries (see Dr. Cunningham Geikie's 'Holy Land and the Bible,' vol. 1. p. 283). But I opened my doors to the traveller; literally, to the way; i.e. "my house gave on the street, and I kept my house door open." Compare the Mishna, "Let thy house be open to the street" ('Pirke Aboth,' § 5). Job 31:32

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

31 If the people of my tent were not obliged to say:

Where would there be one who has not been satisfied with his flesh?! -

32 The stranger did not lodge out of doors,

I opened my door towards the street.

Instead of אמרוּ, it might also be יאמרוּ (dicebant); the perf., however, better denotes not merely what happens in a general way, but what must come to pass. The "people of the tent" are all who belong to it, like the Arab. ahl (tent, metonym. dwellers in the tent), here pre-eminently the servants, but without the expression in itself excluding wife, children, and relations. The optative מי־יתּן, so often spoken of already, is here, as in Job 31:35; Job 14:4; Job 29:2, followed by the acc. objecti, for נשׂבּע is part. with the long accented a (quis exhibebit or exhibeat non saturatum), and מבּשׂרו is not meant of the flesh of the person (as even the lxx in bad taste renders: that his maids would have willingly eaten him, their kind master, up from love to him), but of the flesh of the cattle of the host. Our translation follows the accentuation, which, however, perhaps proceeds from an interpretation like that of Arnheim given above. His constant and ready hospitality is connected with the mention of his abundant care and provision for his own household. It is unnecessary to take ארח, with the ancient versions, for ארח, or so to read it; לארח signifies towards the street, where travellers are to be expected, comp. Pirke aboth i.:5: "May thy house be open into the broad place (לרוחה), and may the poor be thy guests." The Arabs pride themselves on the exercise of hospitality. "To open a guest-chamber" is the same as to establish one's own household in Arabic. Stories of judgments by which the want of hospitality has been visited, form an important element of the popular traditions of the Arabs.

(Note: In the spring of 1860 - relates Wetzstein - as I came out of the forest of Glan, I saw the water of Rm lying before us, that beautiful round crater in which a brook that runs both summer and winter forms a clear but fishless lake, the outflow of which underground is recognised as the fountain of the Jordan, which breaks forth below in the valley out of the crater Tell el-Kadi; and I remarked to my companion, the physician Regeb, the unusual form of the crater, when my Beduins, full of astonishment, turned upon me with the question, "What have you Franks heard of the origin of this lake?" On being asked what they knew about it, they related how that many centuries ago a flourishing village once stood here, the fields of which were the plain lying between the water and the village of Megdel Shems. One evening a poor traveller came while the men were sitting together in the open place in the middle of the village, and begged for a supper and a resting-place for the night, which they refused him. When he assured them that he had eaten nothing since the day before, an old woman amidst general laughter reached out a gelle (a cake of dried cow-dung, which is used for fuel), and drove him out of the village. Thereupon the man went to the village of Nimra (still standing, south of the lake), where he related his misfortune, and was taken in by them. The next morning, when the inhabitants of Nimra woke, they found a lake where the neighbouring village had stood.)