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,

"How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me,

"Oh that I were as in months gone by, As in the days when God watched over me;

"I long for the years gone by when God took care of me,

"Oh, how I long for the good old days, when God took such very good care of me.

If only I might again be as I was in the months which are past, in the days when God was watching over me!

"Oh, that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me;

Oh, that I were as in months past, As in the days when God watched over me;

“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,

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.”