For thou saidst, What advantage will it be unto thee? [and], What profit shall I have, [if I be cleansed] from my sin?
Ver. 3. For thou saidst, What advantage will it be unto thee?] Here he endeavours to prove the charge, grounding upon some words of Job's, as Job 9:22; Job 10:15, which seem to hold out thus much, that no good was to be gotten by leaving evil ways, since good men and bad suffer and perish together. But we must know, that Job herein reasoned not of those things that happen after death, but only of the prosperous or unhappy estate of this life present; denying, and that rightly, that we are hereby to judge God's love or hatred, or of any man's honest or dishonest conversation. Neither yet did he stand in defence of his own righteousness against God, but only appealed to God as a most wise and just judge, against the false accusations of his foe-like friends, who, by pouring oil into the fire, as it were, very much vexed and disquieted him all along.
Or what profit shall I have if I be cleansed from my sin?] Or, What profit shall I have be it more than by my sin? This, if Elihu could have proved that Job had said, he might very well have justified what he had wished to him, and affirmed of him in the two last verses of the preceding chapter.