an ill-humoured, distorted, wry face. When Job desires to give up this look of suffering and be cheerful (הבליג, like Job 10:20, hilaritatem prae se ferre, vultum hilarem induere), the certainty that he is not favoured of God, and consequently that he cannot be delivered from his sufferings, all his anguish in spite of his struggles against it comes ever afresh before his mind. It is scarcely necessary to remark that תנקני is addressed to God, not to Bildad. It is important to notice that Job does not speak of God without at the same time looking up to Him as in prayer. Although he feels rejected of God, he still remains true to God. In the following strophe he continues to complain of God, but without denying Him.
Verses 29-33
Job 9:29-33 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, therefore, should he vainly (הבל, acc. adv., like breath, useless) exert himself by crying for help, and basing his plaint on his innocence? In Job 9:30 the Chethib is במו, the Keri במי, as the reverse in Isa 25:10; mo itself appears in the signification water (Egyptian muau), in the proper names Moab and Moshe (according to Jablonsky, ex aqua servatus); in במו, however, the mo may be understood
