---
title: Job 21:15 (JPS 1917) — And what profit should we have, if we pray unto Him?' — · tree and pragmatics
description: And what profit should we have, if we pray unto Him?' — Who acts: we. Job 21:15 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Job 21:15 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 2

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And what profit should we have, if we pray unto Him?' —

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**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** have, pray · **To what, where:** profit

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This is Job 21:15 · JPS 1917, sentence 2 of 2 in the English of the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation, from Mova's open Bible corpus. The page gives the sentence's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies, parsed by Mova and checked by a teacher model — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it. The original of the verse links back to its own tree and to the Targum.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = jps:JOB:543
# text = And what profit should we have, if we pray unto Him?' —
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	what	what	DET	WDT	PronType=Int	3	det	_	_
3	profit	profit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
4	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
5	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
9	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	pray	pray	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	advcl	_	_
11	unto	unto	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	Him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	_
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
14	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
15	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: wh-question
- act: ask
- voice: character
- polarity: none
- indirect: yes
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | should | we | what profit |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent profit=Patient |
| 2 | **pray** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | we |  |  |  |  | unto God | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

## The Hebrew of this verse {#hebrew}

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מַה־שַׁדַּ֥י כִּֽי־נַֽעַבְדֶ֑נּוּ וּמַה־נּ֝וֹעִ֗יל כִּ֣י נִפְגַּע־בּֽוֹ׃

[Job 21:15: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/JOB.21.15/)

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This verse in JPS 1917:

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1. [What is the Almighty, that we should serve Him?](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/jps/JOB.542/)
2. **And what profit should we have, if we pray unto Him?' —**

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:JOB:543` of Mova's parse database.

**The tree and the speech act** come from Mova's cycle: the small model's draft, read by a large model as teacher, passed by Mova's gates (Elamur Cosmic License). **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the chapter read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence of the chapter.

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