Job 9:23

Scourge. Job is probably referring to war, plague, or pestilence. If one of these be let loose upon men, it slays without discrimination. In such case, God does not always interpose to save the righteous. Laugh. Or, “mock,” “deride.” An audacious, irreverent, and bitter remark that some have tried to defend on the basis that it is a rhetorical statement, but the defense seems inadequate. It is obviously one of those statements of which he later repented in “dust and ashes” (ch. 42:6).