Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Job 29:6 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 6. 6When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Job 29:6 closes the thought unit with the words “When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil.” Job states “When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil” as one poetic claim in Job Remembers Divine Friendship and Household Flourishing.
Read It With
- Job 29:1–29:6
Read Job 29:6 with 29:1–29:6. Read alone, “When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil” could lose its speaker, the question or claim it develops, and the unit's outcome. The complete movement establishes: Job begins his final defense by longing for former days of divine watching, light, intimate counsel, children, and abundance.
Why This Verse Appears Here
After the wisdom poem interrupts the fractured dialogue, Job resumes his formal discourse by remembering former intimacy, family, abundance, and public life before moving into his final ethical defense. Within that relationship, Job 29:6 closes the thought unit through “When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil.”
Read Job 29:1–6 together
Why these verses belong together: Job 29:1–29:6 follows the pinned KJV paragraphing and holds together one sustained speech movement: “Job Remembers Divine Friendship and Household Flourishing.” The next unit begins with a new stanza, question sequence, scene, speaker response, or rhetorical turn.
Verse 1. 1 Moreover Job continued his parable, and said,
Verse 2. 2 Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me;
Verse 3. 3 When his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness;
Verse 4. 4 As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle;
Verse 5. 5 When the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me;
Verse 6. 6 When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;
What Remains True
Job begins his final defense by longing for former days of divine watching, light, intimate counsel, children, and abundance. Faithfulness is not a transaction guaranteeing health, wealth, status, safety, or rapid repair, and delayed relief is not proof of spiritual failure. Job 29:6 carries that bounded truth through “When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil.”
How It Can Shape Life
- Use Job 29:1–29:6 to support faithful presence without promising health, wealth, family, status, or a timetable; offer practical help while refusing to measure faith by visible recovery. Preserve this unit-specific boundary in the action: Memory of flourishing deepens grief; it does not prove that wealth and family size measure righteousness or that restoration is owed in identical form. The verse-specific evidence to retain is “When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil.”
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Job 29:1–29:6 — Job Remembers Divine Friendship and Household FlourishingSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Job 29:1–29:6, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Job
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a complete apparatus or interpretation.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Job.xml, OSIS 29:1–29:6
Open the fixed Hebrew Job file ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible First Edition Notes: Job
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006; current official PDF
Supports: Verse-level controls for Job's difficult Hebrew, syntax, older KJV language, textual issues, speech boundaries, and alternatives in Job 29:1–29:6.
Exact location: Official NET Job PDF, exact translator, study, and textual notes attached to Job 29:1–29:6
Open the official NET Job PDF ↗