Job 29King James Version
Job remembers his old life. When I washed my steps with butter and the rock poured me out rivers of oil. When I went out to the gate of the city, the young men saw me and hid themselves, the old men stood up. I was a father to the poor. The light of his eye was a comfort to the downcast. A lament for the man he used to be.
Job begins his final extended speech, a three-chapter summation. Chapter 29 is pure nostalgia: the months gone by when God's lamp shone on his head, when he walked in darkness and God was with him. The gates of the city respected him, princes waited for him to speak, the poor and the widows and the blind and the stranger all blessed him. He was like a tree by water. He expected to die in his own house after many days.
Job remembers the life he had, the honor, the relationships, the sense of divine favor, and the contrast with where he sits now is the full weight of what he has lost.
2: "Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me." The purest lament in the book: not a theological argument but a human being looking back at a life that made sense and is now gone.
The city gate in the ancient Near East was the public square, the courthouse, the marketplace, the place where community life was conducted. Job's position at the gate meant he was a person of recognized authority. When princes stopped talking out of respect for him, this was not courtesy; it was an acknowledgment of his status as the community's wisest elder.
Job speaks alone. The three friends are not addressed; they have apparently said all they will say. Job is building toward his final defense. Chapter 29 is the before.
The description of Job as a community leader and patron is the book's fullest picture of who he was before his suffering. He was not merely wealthy; he was the person the community depended on for justice, for provision, for wisdom. His losses were not only personal; they were communal.
Every person who has lost something irreplaceable knows chapter 29. The memory of goodness is part of the grief. He is not idealizing a past that was secretly broken; he is describing a real life that really was good.
1Moreover Job continued his parable, and said,
2Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me;
3When his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness;
4As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle;
5When the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me;
6When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;
7When I went out to the gate through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street!
8The young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the aged arose, and stood up.
9The princes refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth.
10The nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth.
11When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me:
12Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.
13The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me: and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.
14I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.
15I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.
16I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.
17And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.
18Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.
19My root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch.
20My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand.
21Unto me men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my counsel.
22After my words they spake not again; and my speech dropped upon them.
23And they waited for me as for the rain; and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.
24If I laughed on them, they believed it not; and the light of my countenance they cast not down.
25I chose out their way, and sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one that comforteth the mourners.