HistoricalChristian.Faith

Job 9:29

29 If I be wicked, why then labour I in vain?
Commentaries
John Chrysostomon Job 9:29AD 407
"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.
Source: COMMENTARY ON JOB 9:29-31
Gregory the Dialogiston Job 9:29AD 604
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.
Thomas Aquinason Job 9:29AD 1274
"If however," after such great zeal for innocence, "I am so wicked," that I merit to be punished with such great punishments from God, "why have I labored in vain?" i.e. with such great anxiety to maintain my innocence? For he labors in vain who tends to an end by his labor which he does not attain.