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Job 29:2
2 Oh that [nathan] I were as in months [yerach] past [qedem], as in the days [yowm] when God ['elowahh] preserved [shamar] me; KJV-Interlinear
2 'Oh that I were as in months gone by, As in the days when God watched over me; NASB
Wishing for better times is natural. There is nothing wrong with wanting to have better in life. Only a fool would want to live a life in poverty and suffering.
In his life prior to his current suffering, Job was extremely wealthy. He had position and power of sorts. He was wealthy and prosperous to such an extent that blessings simply fell into his lap.
And, despite his wealthy status, Job here, acknowledges God as the sole source of his prosperity. He claims no credit to himself for superior business knowledge, for having position and status in the community, for literally everything he possessed or enjoyed.
All of this he gave credit to God and to God alone.
But now, all of his wealth has been removed, and his life is not as comfortable as it once was. And again, no one wants to life a life in adversity. That simply isn't a normal attitude.
Job looks back on his former years and begins to describe how his life really was.
This is so that we can see a few things in this book. First, Job had a life, which was blessed by God. The arguments of his friends ignored the fact of Jobs past life. Second, this supports the description of Job from chapter one. He was one of the greatest of men in all of the land. Third, Jobs wealth did not go to his head in arrogance. He was so wealthy that he could very well have had anything he wanted - women, drugs, power, and the abuses that generally go along with that sort of vast wealth. But these vices of life did not appeal to Job, nor did he fall into their traps.
This also demonstrates one more principle in life. People look on your outward appearance and judge you by that. God looks on your soul, and judges you by the content of your thought pattern.
People do not have the right to judge others, and express their opinions socially. God has the right to judge everyone, in every situation.
It was not Jobs wealth, or prosperity that guarded his life, it was God who preserved Job regardless of his situation. Then he was rich, now he is poor, then he was healthy, now he is severely ill. God preserves and protects (watches over) in every situation, the mature or positive believer.
The spiritually positive believer can live life in confidence and comfort in any situation, whereas the spiritually negative person will never have this emotional comfort in life regardless of their situation.
With every description of Jobs health, he should already be bankrupt, destitute, dead … but he is not.
