Isaiah Chapter 49 verse 4 Holy Bible
But I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and vanity; yet surely the justice `due' to me is with Jehovah, and my recompense with my God.
read chapter 49 in ASV
And I said, I have undergone weariness for nothing, I have given my strength for no purpose or profit: but still the Lord will take up my cause, and my God will give me my reward.
read chapter 49 in BBE
-- And I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain; nevertheless my judgment is with Jehovah, and my work with my God.
read chapter 49 in DARBY
Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgment is with the LORD, and my work with my God.
read chapter 49 in KJV
read chapter 49 in WBT
But I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely the justice [due] to me is with Yahweh, and my recompense with my God.
read chapter 49 in WEB
And I said, `For a vain thing I laboured, For emptiness and vanity my power I consumed, But my judgment `is' with Jehovah, And my wage with my God.
read chapter 49 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 4. - Then I said, I have laboured in vain; rather, and I, for my part, had said. The Servant had momentarily desponded, seeing the small results of all his efforts to reclaim Israel, and had felt a natural human regret at so much labour apparently expended in vain; but his despondency had been soon checked by the thought that God would not suffer any "labour of love" to be wholly in vain, but would give it the recompense which it merited. The verse brings strongly out the true humanity of the "Servant," who feels as men naturally feel, but restrains himself, and does not allow his feelings to carry him away. Compare with this despondency the grief exhibited by our Lord on two occasions (Matthew 23:37; John 11:35), and the depression which extorted from him the memorable words, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" (Matthew 27:46). My work; rather, my reward, or my recompense.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(4) Then I said.--The accents of disappointment sound strangely on coming from the lips of the true Servant; but the prophet had learnt by his own experience that this formed part of the discipline of every true servant of God, in proportion to the thoroughness of his service, and therefore it was not strange to him that the ideal Servant should also taste that bitterness. We find in the prophet of Anathoth a partial illustration of the law (Jeremiah 20:14). We find its highest fulfilment in the cries of Gethsemane and Golgotha, The sense of failure is surmounted only, as here, by looking to another judgment than man's, and another reward (better than "work"). (Comp. 1Corinthians 4:3.)
