to be (causatively · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
labour
אִיגָֽע'i.Ga'
H3021
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
vain
הֶ֣בֶלHe.vel
H1892
emptiness or vanity · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 10:7 Thou knowest that I am not wicked; and there is none that can deliver out of thine hand.
Job 9:22 This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.
Job 10:2 I will say unto God, Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me.
Job 10:14-17 If I sin, then thou markest me, and thou wilt not acquit me from mine iniquity.
Job 21:16-17 Lo, their good is not in their hand: the counsel of the wicked is far from me.
Job 21:27 Behold, I know your thoughts, and the devices which ye wrongfully imagine against me.
Job 22:5-30 Is not thy wickedness great? and thine iniquities infinite?
Psalms 37:33 The LORD will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 9:25–end
Job here grows more and more querulous, and does not conclude this chapter with such reverent expressions of God's wisdom and justice as he began with. Those that indulge a complaining humour know not to what indecencies, nay, to what impieties, it will hurry them. The beginning of that strife with God is as the letting forth of water; therefore leave it off before it be meddled with. When we are in trouble we are allowed to complain to God, as the Psalmist often, but must by no means complain of God, as Job here.
I. His complaint here of the passing away of the days of his prosperity is proper enough (Job 9:25, Job 9:26): "My days (that is, all my good days) are gone, never to return, gone…
The "if" is better omitted; I (am treated by God as) wicked; why then labor I in vain (to disprove His charge)? Job submits, not so much because he is convinced that God is right, as because God is powerful and he weak [BARNES].
John Gill on Job 9:29
If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain? If he was that wicked person, that hypocrite, Bildad and his other friends took him to be, it was in vain for him to make his supplications to God, as they advised him; so Gersom gives the sense of the words; since God hears not sinners, such as live in sin, regard iniquity in their hearts, and practise it in their lives, at least secretly, as it was suggested Job did; if he was such an one, it must be all lost labour to pray to God to show favour to him, and deliver him out of his troubles, since he might reasonably expect he would shut his eyes and stop his ears at such a man, and regard not his cries; seeking to him must be in vain; prayer may be…
29 If I am wicked, why do I exert myself in vain?
30 If I should wash myself with snow water,
And make my hands clean with lye,
31 Then thou wouldst plunge me into the pit,
And my clothes would abhor me.
32 For He is not a man as I, that I should answer Him,
That we should go together to judgment.
33 There is not an arbitrator between us
Who should lay his hand upon us both.
The clause with strongly accented "I" affirms that in relation to God is from the first, and unchangeably, a wicked, i.e., guilty, man (Psa 109:7) (רשׁע, to be a wicked man, means either to act as such Job 10:15, or to appear as such, be accounted as such, as here and Job 10:7; Hiph., Job 9:20, to condemn). Why, therefor…
The Church Fathers
"If I am an ungodly, why am I not dead, rather than suffer? I know it, you hear it, yourself. He means, perhaps, that he is suffering, because he is not dead to impiety.
"If I am ungodly, why have I not died?" You see how he does not deny being a sinner. "Why have I not died?" he says. This is not the expression of a man who accuses but who searches.
But if even so I be wicked, why, then, have I laboured in vain? For if we be examined pity set aside, our work which we look to have recompensed with a reward is deserving of punishment. 'Therefore the holy man shrinking under secret judgment, says, But if even so I be wicked, why, then, have I laboured in vain? Not that he repents of having laboured, but that it grieves him even amidst labours to be in uncertainty about the reward. But we must bear in mind that the Saints so doubt that they trust, and so trust that notwithstanding they do not slumber in security. Therefore because it is very often the case that the mind, even when bent upon right courses, is full of fears, it follows that after the good deed is done, deprecating tears be had recourse to, in order that the humility of entreaty may bear up the deserts of right practice to eternal rewards. But yet we must bear in mind that neither our life nor our tears have power to make us perfectly clean, so long as the mortal condition of our state of corruption holds us fast bound.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Depravity Of Man · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
