Job 21:15 — “what profit if we pray unto him?”
Source: Job 21:15 (quotation embedded in Job’s reply to Zophar) Related themes: relational-prayer, lament
The verse
KJV: “What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?”
This is Job quoting the wicked. The verse is doubly framed: the surface meaning is the wicked’s explicit position; Job’s use of it is empirical evidence against the friends’ retribution theology.
Context — Job 21 is the empirical case
Job 21 is Job’s reply to Zophar’s second speech (chapter 20), where Zophar had given the loudest articulation of retribution theology: the wicked are punished swiftly, visibly, certainly. Job 21 is the devastating empirical rebuttal. Read 21:7-15 as one unit:
“Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power?… Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them… They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?”
Job is putting words into the mouths of the prospering wicked. He is observing: these are the people who explicitly reject prayer, and they prosper anyway. The verse is part of the evidence that the friends’ theology is empirically false.
Hebrew
מַה־שַׁדַּי כִּי־נַעַבְדֶנּוּ וּמַה־נּוֹעִיל כִּי נִפְגַּע־בּוֹ
mah-Shaddai kī na’avdennū, ūmah nō’īl kī nifga’-bō
| Hebrew | Force |
|---|---|
| mah-Shaddai | ”what is Shaddai” — the patriarchal divine name |
| kī na’avdennū | ”that we should serve him” (root ‘āvad) |
| ūmah nō’īl | ”and what shall we profit / gain” (root yā’al) |
| kī nifga’-bō | ”if we encounter / intercede with him” (root pāga’) |
Shaddai — the name the dialogues use
Job’s dialogues consistently use Shaddai (the Almighty) rather than the Tetragrammaton — the patriarchal name, used in Gen 17:1 (“I am God Almighty”) before Moses’ Sinai revelation. The book of Job consciously frames itself in patriarchal-era register; the wicked’s question is shaped by this — they’re asking about the Almighty in pre-Sinai vocabulary, before the covenant explicitly defines what serving the LORD entails.
pāga’ — not just “pray”
The KJV renders the final phrase as “if we pray unto him,” but the Hebrew verb is pāga’ — to meet, encounter, accost, intercede, fall upon. The same verb is used in Isaiah 53:12 of the suffering servant — “he bare the sin of many, and made intercession (yafgîa’) for the transgressors.” And in Isaiah 59:16: “he saw that there was no intercessor (mafgîa’).”
So the wicked’s question is not just “what profit from saying prayers?” It is: what profit from the whole posture of bringing-things-before-God? What’s in it for us to intercede, to encounter, to come before? They are rejecting the intercessor posture wholesale.
yā’al — the merchant’s verb
Yā’al (profit / gain) is the same root that appears repeatedly in Ecclesiastes — “what profit (yithrôn) hath a man of all his labor?” It is the verb of cost-benefit accounting. The wicked frame the question entirely in transactional terms. Prayer must pay or it is not worth doing.
The structural revelation — this is Satan’s question
The wicked in Job 21:15 are saying out loud what Satan said in Job 1:9 in the heavenly council:
“Doth Job fear God for nought? Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?”
Satan’s claim was: all worship is transactional. Take away the hedge — the prosperity, the protection — and Job will curse you to your face. His diagnostic of human worship is the same as the wicked’s explicit doctrine: serving God for profit, abandoning when profit stops.
The entire book of Job is the LORD’s answer to Satan’s question. Job 21:15 is the wicked giving the verbal articulation of Satan’s diagnosis. The wicked have arrived at the philosophy Satan claims is secretly everyone’s. They are at least honest about the transactional motive; the friends’ retribution theology hides the same assumption under pious language.
Job himself is the LORD’s refutation — the man who continues to worship through total loss (1:21 — “the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD”). His existence is the empirical refutation of both the wicked AND the friends. Both share the transactional premise; Job dissolves it by continuing to pray (see ./job-16-17.md, my prayer is pure) when there is no profit visible.
Cross-scriptural witnesses — the formula recurs
The transactional-rejection posture is canonized as the godless voice at several junctures:
| Reference | Echo |
|---|---|
| Exodus 5:2 | Pharaoh: “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice?” Same vocabulary structure: who/what is X, that I should Y? The first canonical instance. |
| Malachi 3:13-15 | Post-exilic Israel: “It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance…?” The exact Job 21:15 complaint, attributed to Israel after the return. |
| Psalm 73 (Asaph) | The psalmist almost slips: “Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain.” Then: “I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.” The psalm’s whole arc is recovery from the temptation. |
| Ecclesiastes | Qoheleth’s sustained interrogation of yithrôn — profit. The wisdom-tradition’s structured version of the same problem. |
| Pirkei Avot 1:3 | Antigonus of Sokho: “Be not like servants who serve the master for the sake of receiving a reward, but be like servants who serve the master without the sake of receiving a reward, and let the awe of Heaven be upon you.” The canonical rabbinic correction. |
Cross-tradition
- Sufi: what the tradition calls ‘ibādat al-tujjār (the worship of merchants) — serving God for the reward. The higher form is ‘ibādat al-aḥrār (the worship of the free) — serving for God’s sake regardless of profit or loss. Rabia al-Adawiyya’s canonical prayer: “O God, if I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell. If I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your own sake, withhold not Your everlasting beauty.” Job is the OT version of Rabia.
- Patristic: Augustine develops the uti vs frui distinction — God is to be enjoyed for His own sake, not used for what He can provide. The wicked of Job 21 are stuck in uti; the free worshiper inhabits frui.
Practice distillations
1. The transactional posture is the diagnostic
When prayer feels not worth it because it isn’t paying — that exact moment is the question of Job 21:15. The corrective is not to argue oneself back into expecting payment. It is to notice the transactional framing as itself the symptom. The Job-position: continue praying with no expectation of profit, because the address is the relationship.
2. The Satan-question moment
The whole book of Job rests on the LORD’s wager that worship can be free of transactional motive. Worship that survives the removal of the hedge is the only worship Satan cannot accuse. When prayer is hard and feels useless, that very moment is the offering — the moment when the transactional motive is being burned off. The dry prayer at the dry hour is worth more than the easy prayer when profit is flowing.
3. Two failures sharing one root
The friends believe righteousness should pay; suffering proves its absence. The wicked believe righteousness should pay; since it doesn’t, abandon it. Both share the transactional assumption. Job rejects both by continuing to pray without the assumption. When caught between “righteousness should pay” (the religious failure-mode) and “since it doesn’t, give up” (the cynical failure-mode), recognize they share the same false root.
4. The pāga’ posture is the corrective
The wicked reject the whole posture of bringing-things-before-God. The corrective is the opposite: willingness to bring everything before God, even (especially) the things that cannot be transacted. The intercession (pāga’) is itself the value, not the result. When something cannot be exchanged with God for an outcome, bring it anyway. The bringing is the relationship, not the bargaining.
5. Empirical observation is not the verdict
Job’s argument is empirical: the wicked prosper. The observation is correct. But the observation is not the verdict on prayer or theology. The friends infer theology from observation badly; the wicked infer practice from observation badly. Job holds the observation honestly and does not let it determine his prayer. The observable absence of payoff is not the verdict. The prayer is being refined precisely there.
One thing this verse can’t tell you
The text records the words of the wicked but not their interior state. Were they bitter? Were they smugly satisfied? Was there any tremor of doubt under the explicit doctrine? Job’s quotation gives us their public position but not the inner weather. They have arrived at the explicit articulation that prayer is worthless — but the heart that arrived there may or may not be at peace with the conclusion.
What is recorded is the formula. The formula is canonized for recognition. When the formula appears in one’s own thought — what profit if I pray? — recognition is the first step.
Cross-references
./job-16-17.md— the structural opposite: my prayer is pure (zakkāh), sustained without expectation of profit./job-22-27.md— Eliphaz’s transactional reformulation in promissory form, after this verse is spoken./relational-prayer.md— the theme this verse sits inside: transactional vs relational direction in prayer./lament.md— the prayer mode that survives the absence of payoff- Job 1:9 — Satan’s foundational accusation: “Doth Job fear God for nought?”
- Exodus 5:2 — Pharaoh: who is the LORD that I should obey?
- Malachi 3:13-18 — the same complaint + the book of remembrance answer
- Psalm 73 — Asaph’s near-slip and recovery
- Ecclesiastes — the wisdom-version of the yithrôn question
- Pirkei Avot 1:3 — Antigonus’s correction