a day (as the warm hours) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
youth
חָרְפִּ֑יcha.re.Pi
H2779
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
secret
בְּס֥וֹדbe.Sod
H5475
a session · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
God
אֱ֝ל֗וֹהַּ'e.Lo.ah
H433
a deity or the Deity · noun, common masculine singular absolute
tabernacle
אָהֳלִֽי'o.ho.Li
H168
a tent (as clearly conspicuous from a distance) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 25:14 The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.
Proverbs 3:32 For the froward is abomination to the LORD: but his secret is with the righteous.
Job 1:10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hand…
Job 15:8 Hast thou heard the secret of God? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself?
Psalms 27:5 For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a roc…
Psalms 91:1 He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Colossians 3:3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 29:1-6
Losers may have leave to speak, and there is nothing they speak of more feelingly than of the comforts they are stripped of. Their former prosperity is one of the most pleasing subjects of their thoughts and talk. It was so to Job, who begins here with a wish (Job 29:2): O that I were as in months past! so he brings in this account of his prosperity. His wish is, 1. "O that I were in as good a state as I was in then, that I had as much wealth, honour, and pleasure, as I had then!" This he wishes, from a concern he had, not so much for his ease, as for his reputation and the glory of his God, which he thought were eclipsed by his present sufferings. "O that I might be restored to my prosperit…
youth--literally, "autumn"; the time of the ripe fruits of my prosperity. Applied to youth, as the Orientalists began their year with autumn, the most temperate season in the East.
secret--when the intimate friendship of God rested on my tent (Pro 3:32; Psa 31:20; Gen 18:17; Joh 15:15). The Hebrew often means a divan for deliberation.
John Gill on Job 29:4
As I was in the days of my youth,.... Either taken literally, he being one like Obadiah, that feared God from his youth upward, 1 Kings 18:3; or figuratively, for his former state of prosperity, when he was like a tree in autumn laden with ripe and rich fruit, and in great abundance; and so some render the words "in the days of my autumn", or "autumnity" (r); though it may respect the time of his first conversion, the infancy and youth of his spiritual state, who, when first regenerated, was as a newborn babe, and then became a young man, and now a father in Christ, his living Redeemer: and Job wishes it was with him as in his youth, or in the early days of his conversion, at which season, g…
1 Then Job continued to take up his proverb, and said:
2 O that I had months like the times of yore,
Like the days when Eloah protected me,
3 When He, when His lamp, shone above my head,
By His light I went about in the darkness;
4 As I was in the days of my vintage,
When the secret of Eloah was over my tent,
5 When the Almighty was still with me,
My children round about me;
6 When my steps were bathed in cream,
And the rock beside me poured forth streams of oil.
Since the optative מי־יתּן (comp. on Job 23:3) is connected with the acc. of the object desired, Job 14:4; Job 31:31, or of that respecting which anything is desired, Job 11:5, it is in itself possible to explain: who gives (makes)…
The Church Fathers
"While the word of God kept my house," to keep the way of it pure.
As I was in the days of my youth, when God was secretly in my tabernacle. As of each individual man, so is the age of Holy Church described. For she was a little one, when fresh from the birth she was unable to preach the Word of Life. Hence it is said of her, My sister is a little one, and she hath no breasts; in this way, that Holy Church, before she made progress by accessions of virtue, was not able to yield the teats of preaching to the weak ones her hearers. But the Church is called 'adult' when being wedded to the Word of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, by the office of preaching she is with young in the conception of children, with whom by exhorting she travails, whom by converting she brings forth. Of this age of hers it is said to the Lord; The young maidens have loved Thee. For all the Churches, which constitute one Catholic Church, are called young maidens, not now aged by sin, but young ones by grace, not barren by old age, but by the age of the soul fitted for spiritual fruitfulness. Accordingly then, when in those days being as it were enfeebled by a kind of old age she hath not strength to bring forth children by preaching, she calls to mind the bygone fruitfulness, saying, As I was in the days of my youth. Though after those days wherein she is borne down, yet, this notwithstanding, now at length towards the actual end of times, she is empowered with a mighty efficacy of preaching. For the Gentiles being taken in to the full, all the Israelitish people that shall then be found she draws into the bosom of the faith. Since it is written; Until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved. But before those times there shall be days, in the which she shall appear for a little while borne down by her adversaries, when too she remembers these days, saying, As I was in the days of my youth; when God was secretly in my tabernacle. What in this place do we take the 'tabernacle' for but the dwelling-place of the mind? Because by all that we do with taking thought, we dwell in the counsel of our heart. But whoever in silence thinks of the precepts of God, to him 'God is secretly in his tabernacle.' For he had seen the dwelling-place of his heart to be before the eyes of God, who said, And the meditation of my heart always in Thy sight. For outward deeds are open to the eyes of men, but widely and incomparably more our…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Children, Good · Exemplified: Job — Exemplified: Job
Lamps · Illumination of the tents of Arab chiefs by, alluded to — Illumination of the tents of Arab chiefs by, alluded to
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Although elsewhere Job uses the Hebrew shamar to describe what he perceived as God’s oppressive surveillance (10:14; 13:27; 14:16), here it refers to God’s kindly care (“watch(es) over,” Ps 121:3-8).
Rashi on Job 29:4
in my early days Heb. חרפי, in my early days. This is an Aramaism, early crops and late crops (חרפי ואפלי).
when God’s counsel was upon my tent When the righteous of the generation would come to my tent, to take counsel in the words of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the Torah and in enacting temporary safeguards.
