“The rock poured out streams of oil”
when my steps were bathed in cream and the rock poured out for me streams of oil! (Job 29:6 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A strange literal claim about walking in cream and oily rocks.
The cultural key
Read flatly, this sounds like an odd boast about slippery footing. It is poetry of abundance. In an agrarian world, milk (here rich 'cream' or curds) and olive oil were the very measures of prosperity and blessing. Job pictures his former life so overflowing with them that his steps were 'bathed in cream,' walking through plenty, and that 'the rock poured out streams of oil,' as if even the hard, barren stone of his olive presses and hills gushed oil for him. The point is not literal geology but blessing so lavish it came even from unlikely, stony places, God's favor turning rock into a fountain of oil. It belongs to the same biblical vein as honey and oil drawn 'from the rock' as signs of God's provision (Deuteronomy 32:13). Job is describing the golden days when heaven's abundance saturated everything he touched.
Recovered meaning
'The rock poured out streams of oil' is a hyperbole of overflowing prosperity, milk so plentiful it bathes his steps and oil gushing even from bare stone. Job pictures the lavishly blessed life he has lost, abundance flowing from the unlikeliest places.