Job 19:2

Vex - To trouble; disturb.

How long will ye vex my soul - Every thing that was irritating, vexatious, and opprobrious, his friends had recourse to, in order to support their own system, and overwhelm him. Not one of them seems to have been touched with a feeling of tenderness towards him, nor does a kind expression drop at any time from their lips! They were called friends; but this term, in reference to them, must be taken in the sense of cold-blooded acquaintances. However, there are many in the world that go under the sacred name of friends, who, in times of difficulty, act a similar part. Job's friends have been, by the general consent of posterity, consigned to endless infamy. May all those who follow their steps be equally enrolled in the annals of bad fame!

How long will ye vex my soul? - Perhaps designing to reply to the taunting speech of Bildad; Job 18:2. "He" had asked "how long it would be ere Job would make an end of empty talk?" "Job" asks, in reply, "how long" they would torture and afflict his soul? Or whether there was on hope that this would ever come to an end!

And break me in pieces - Crush me, or bruise me - like breaking any thing in a mortar, or breaking rocks by repeated blows of the hammer. "Noyes." He says they had crushed him, as if by repeated blows.