Overview
Job looks back with anguished nostalgia on the days when God's favor shone visibly upon him, when he held a place of reverent authority at the city gate, championed the poor and defenseless through a righteousness woven into his very identity, and spoke words of wisdom that the people received with the eager silence of farmers awaiting rain — making plain that his deepest grief is not suffering itself but the loss of intimate closeness with God, whose presence once made every aspect of his life luminous.
Passages
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Job 29
1Job again took up his parable, and said,
2“Oh that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me;
3when his lamp shone on my head, and by his light I walked through darkness,
4as I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was in my tent,
5when the Almighty was yet with me, and my children were around me,
6when my steps were washed with butter, and the rock poured out streams of oil for me,
7when I went out to the city gate, when I prepared my seat in the street.
8The young men saw me and hid themselves. The aged rose up and stood.
9The princes refrained from talking, and laid their hand on their mouth.
10The voice of the nobles was hushed, and their tongue stuck to the roof of their mouth.
11For when the ear heard me, then it blessed me, and when the eye saw me, it commended me,
12because I delivered the poor who cried, and the fatherless also, who had no one to help him,
13the blessing of him who was ready to perish came on me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.
14I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My justice was as a robe and a diadem.
15I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame.
16I was a father to the needy. I researched the cause of him whom I didn’t know.
17I broke the jaws of the unrighteous and plucked the prey out of his teeth.
18Then I said, ‘I will die in my own house, I will count my days as the sand.
19My root is spread out to the waters. The dew lies all night on my branch.
20My glory is fresh in me. My bow is renewed in my hand.’
21“Men listened to me, waited, and kept silence for my counsel.
22After my words they didn’t speak again. My speech fell on them.
23They waited for me as for the rain. Their mouths drank as with the spring rain.
24I smiled on them when they had no confidence. They didn’t reject the light of my face.
25I chose out their way, and sat as chief. I lived as a king in the army, as one who comforts the mourners.