Job 29:2

“Oh that I were as [in] months past, etc.] Which is either an earnest wish for restoration to his former state of outward prosperity; which he might desire, not through impatience and discontent under his present circumstances, or from a carnal and worldly spirit; but either that the present reproach he lay under from his friends might be taken off, he observing that they accounted him a wicked man and an hypocrite, because of his afflictions; wherefore he judged, if these were removed, and he was in as prosperous a condition and in as good circumstances as before, they would entertain a different opinion of him; or, that his words might be better attended to, as they were by men, both young…”

“preserved me--from calamity.”

“Oh that I were - Hebrew “Who will give?” a common mode of expressing a wish; compare Job 6:8; Job 11:5; Job 13:5; Job 23:3. As in months past - O that I could recall my former prosperity, and be as was when I enjoyed the protection and favor of God. Probably one object of this wish was that his friends might see from what a state of honor and happiness he had been brought down. They complained of him as impatient. He may have designed to show them that his lamentations were not unreasonable, when it was borne in mind from what a state of prosperity he had been taken, and to what a condition of wo he had been brought. He, therefore, goes into this extended description of his former happiness,…”

“Preserved - From all those miseries which now I feel. Job 29:3”

“29:2 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).”

“as in months: Job 1:1-5, Job 7:3 God: Job 1:10; Psa 37:28; Jde 1:1 Job 29:3”