30 If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands never so clean;
30 Even if I washed myself with soap and my hands with cleansing powder,
30 If I wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye,
30 Even if I scrub myself all over and wash myself with the strongest soap I can find,
30 If I wash myself with snow water, And cleanse my hands with soap,
30 Even if I were to wash myself with soap and clean my hands with lye,
20 As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart.
20 Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on a wound, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.
20 Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, and like vinegar on soda.
20 Singing light songs to the heavyhearted is like pouring salt in their wounds.
20 Like one who takes away a garment in cold weather, And like vinegar on soda, Is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.
20 Singing cheerful songs to a person with a heavy heart is like taking someone's coat in cold weather or pouring vinegar in a wound.
(Read Proverbs 25:20)
We take a wrong course if we think to relieve those in sorrow by endeavouring to make them merry.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 9:30
Commentary on Job 9:25-35
(Read Job 9:25-35)
What little need have we of pastimes, and what great need to redeem time, when it runs on so fast towards eternity! How vain the enjoyments of time, which we may quite lose while yet time continues! The remembrance of having done our duty will be pleasing afterwards; so will not the remembrance of having got worldly wealth, when it is all lost and gone. Job's complaint of God, as one that could not be appeased and would not relent, was the language of his corruption. There is a Mediator, a Daysman, or Umpire, for us, even God's own beloved Son, who has purchased peace for us with the blood of his cross, who is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God through him. If we trust in his name, our sins will be buried in the depths of the sea, we shall be washed from all our filthiness, and made whiter than snow, so that none can lay any thing to our charge. We shall be clothed with the robes of righteousness and salvation, adorned with the graces of the Holy Spirit, and presented faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. May we learn the difference between justifying ourselves, and being thus justified by God himself. Let the tempest-tossed soul consider Job, and notice that others have passed this dreadful gulf; and though they found it hard to believe that God would hear or deliver them, yet he rebuked the storm, and brought them to the desired haven. Resist the devil; give not place to hard thoughts of God, or desperate conclusions about thyself. Come to Him who invites the weary and heavy laden; who promises in nowise to cast them out.