FOR NOTHING — gratis, without payment, for no return; from chen, 'favor,' so: as a free gift. It carries the hinge of two books. In Malachi 1:10 the priests will not kindle the altar chinnam (on one reading, 'for free, unpaid' — the KJV and Geneva take it that way; ASV and NIV read 'in vain'). In Job 1:9 the Accuser asks the question the whole book exists to answer: 'Is it for nothing (ha-chinnam) that Job fears God?' — is disinterested devotion possible, or is piety only ever a paid arrangement? A third occurrence carries the same word into pure lament: Lamentations 3:52 describes enemies who hunt the speaker 'chinnam' — without cause, unearned — the identical word John 15:25 later quotes from a psalm, not from this verse, but tracing the same thread of suffering that names itself undeserved. → first discussed at Job 1:9