Verse Lens · Context pointer
Job 9:29 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 29. 29If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain?
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Role in This Section
Job 9:29 advances the thought unit with the words “If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain?.” Job presses the unit's question through “If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain?”, a line that belongs to Job Longs for an Arbiter Between Unequal Parties.
Read It With
- Job 9:25–9:35
Read Job 9:29 with 9:25–9:35. Read alone, “If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain?” could lose its speaker, the question or claim it develops, and the unit's outcome. The complete movement establishes: Job pictures days racing away, rejects forced self-cleansing, and longs for a mediator who could remove fear and let him speak.
Why It Needs Context
Job 9:29 depends on 9:25–9:35; isolating “If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain?” would detach a poetic premise, image, response, or transition from Job and “Job Longs for an Arbiter Between Unequal Parties.”
Read Job 9:25–35 together
Why these verses belong together: Job 9:25–9:35 follows the pinned KJV paragraphing and holds together one sustained speech movement: “Job Longs for an Arbiter Between Unequal Parties.” The next unit begins with a new stanza, question sequence, scene, speaker response, or rhetorical turn.
Verse 25. 25 Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good.
Verse 26. 26 They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey.
Verse 27. 27 If I say, I will forget my complaint, I will leave off my heaviness, and comfort myself:
Verse 28. 28 I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that thou wilt not hold me innocent.
Verse 29. 29 If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain?
Verse 30. 30 If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;
Verse 31. 31 Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me.
Verse 32. 32 For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment.
Verse 33. 33 Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.
Verse 34. 34 Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me:
Verse 35. 35 Then would I speak, and not fear him; but it is not so with me.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Job 9:25–9:35 — Job Longs for an Arbiter Between Unequal PartiesSources used for this context pointer
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Job 9:25–9:35, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Job
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a complete apparatus or interpretation.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Job.xml, OSIS 9:25–9:35
Open the fixed Hebrew Job file ↗