Whatever happens, I will be found guilty. So what’s the use of trying?
Parallel translations
- WEB I shall be condemned. Why then do I labor in vain?
- KJV If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain?
- BSB Since I am already found guilty, why should I labor in vain?
- NKJV If I am condemned, Why then do I labor in vain?
- NASB “I am guilty, Why then should I struggle in vain?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Job feels already counted guilty before God, so striving to clear himself seems pointless. It voices the despair of one who cannot vindicate himself before the Almighty.
Overview
Continuing his reply to Bildad, Job senses that whatever he does he will be treated as condemned, making self-justification feel futile. He grasps a real truth: no sinner can win a legal case against the holy God by his own effort. The gospel answers Job's despair, for in Christ God provides the righteousness no one can labor up for himself (Romans 3:20-24).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Job 10:7Although you know that I am not wicked, there is no one who can deliver out of your hand.
- Job 21:16–17Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
- Job 10:14–17if I sin, then you mark me. You will not acquit me from my iniquity.
- Job 22:5–30Isn’t your wickedness great? Neither is there any end to your iniquities.
- Job 10:2I will tell God, ‘Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me.
- Ps 37:33Yahweh will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged.
- Ps 73:13Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence,
- Jer 2:35“Yet you said, ‘I am innocent. Surely his anger has turned away from me.’ “Behold, I will judge you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’
- Job 21:27“Behold, I know your thoughts, the devices with which you would wrong me.
- Job 9:22“It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 9:29 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.