Job 29:2

“O that I could be ¹  as ²  I was in the months now gone, ³  in the days ⁴  when God watched ⁵  over me,

Job 1:1-5; Job 1:10; Job 7:3; Ps 37:28; Jude 1:1

¹ tn The optative is here expressed with מִי־יִתְּנֵנִי (mi-yittÿneni, “who will give me”), meaning, “O that I [could be]…” (see GKC 477 §151.b).

² tn The preposition כּ (kaf) is used here in an expression describing the state desired, especially in the former time (see GKC 376 §118.u).

³ tn The expression is literally “months of before [or of old; or past].” The word קֶדֶם (qedem) is intended here to be temporal and not spatial; it means days that preceded the present.

⁴ tn The construct state (“days of”) governs the independent sentence that follows (see GKC 422 §130.d): “as the days of […] God used to watch over me.”

⁵ tn The imperfect verb here has a customary nuance – “when God would watch over me” (back then), or “when God used to watch over me.”