Job 29 · a question people ask
Job speaks of God's care only in the past: "when the Almighty was yet with me" (29:5). What does the book set beside his words?
These are Job's words, and in this chapter every word of God's care is in the past: "as in the days when God watched over me" (29:2), "when his lamp shone on my head" (29:3), "when the friendship of God was in my tent" (29:4), "when the Almighty was yet with me" (29:5). Earlier he had said, "If I go east, he is not there. If I go west, I can’t find him" (23:8). The book gives other words too. In its first chapters the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only on himself don’t stretch out your hand" (1:12), and after Job's first losses the LORD still spoke of "my servant Job" (2:3). When the LORD answers Job, he answers "out of the whirlwind" (38:1). The book sets these side by side and doesn't say how Job's words and these fit together, and these notes don't either.
The verses
““Oh that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me; when his lamp shone on my head, and by his light I walked through darkness, as I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was in my tent, when the Almighty was yet with me, and my children were around me,”
““If I go east, he is not there. If I go west, I can’t find him.”
“The LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only on himself don’t stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.”
“The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil. He still maintains his integrity, although you incited me against him, to ruin him without cause.””