Albert Barnes Commentary Job 29:6

"When my steps were washed with butter, And the rock poured me out streams of oil!" — Job 29:6 (ASV)

When I washed my steps with butter - On the word rendered “butter,” see the notes at (Isaiah 7:15). It properly means curdled milk. Umbreit renders it Sahne (cream). Noyes, milk, and so Wemyss. The Septuagint, “When my ways flowed with butter”—βουτύρῳ bouturō. So Coverdale, “When my ways ran over with butter.” Herder, “And where I went a stream of milk flowed on.”

The sense may be that cream or butter was so plentiful that he was able to use it for the most common purposes—even for washing his feet. That butter was sometimes used for anointing the feet—probably for comfort and health, as oil was for the head—is mentioned by travelers in the East. For instance, Hasselquist (Travels in Palestine, p. 58), speaking of the ceremonies of the priests at Magnesia on Holy Thursday, says, “The priest washed and dried the feet, and afterward besmeared them with butter, which it was alleged was made from the first milk of a young cow.” Bruce also states that the king of Abyssinia daily anointed his head with butter.

Burder in Rosenmuller’s alte u. neue Morgenland, in loc. It is possible that this use of butter was as ancient as the time of Job and that he here alludes to it. However, it seems more probable that the image is designed to denote superfluity or abundance, meaning that where he trod, streams of milk or cream flowed—so abundant was it around him. The word rendered “steps” (הליכם hâlı̂ykam) does not properly denote “the feet” but “the tread, the going, the stepping.” This sense corresponds with that of the other member of the parallelism.

And the rock poured me out rivers of oil - Margin, “with me.” The idea is that the very rock near which he stood seemed to pour forth oil. Instead of water gushing out, such seemed to be the abundance with which he was blessed that the very rock poured out a running stream of oil. Oil was of great value among people in Eastern lands. It was used as an article of food, for light, for anointing the body, and as a valuable medicine.

To say, then, that one had an abundance of oil was the same as to say that he had ample means of comfort and luxury. Perhaps by the word “rock” here, there is an allusion to the places where olives grew. It is said that those which produced the best oil grew upon rocky mountains. There may be, also, an allusion to this in (Deuteronomy 32:13): “He made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock.” Professor Lee and some others, however, understand by the rock here, the press where oil was extracted from olives, which, it is supposed, was sometimes made of stone.