Job 1:5

sent and sanctified them that is, most likely, sent forthem. The sanctification or purification consisted probably in washings and change of garments, Genesis 35:2, and similar rites, and was preparatory to the sacrifice or religious service immediately to be engaged in, as Samuel said to the family of Jesse, "Sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice," 1 Samuel 16:5. The act of worship was the sacrifice. As was customary in the Patriarchal age, to which Job belonged, and even far down in the history of Israel, the father was priest of the family, and the sacrifice offered was the burnt-offering. This offering contained in it the germs which afterwards expanded into the various distinct kinds of sacrifice, such as the sin-offering. Job used it as a sacrifice of atonement.

number of them all Whether Job offered ten burnt-offerings, including his daughters in his atoning sacrifice, which would seem likely, or only seven, one corresponding to each feast day, is a point that cannot be settled with certainty.

sinned, and cursed God in their hearts Rather, sinned and disowned God, that is, sinned by disowning or renouncing God in their hearts. Job himself was not present at the youthful festivities. He did not any longer care for such things, but he did not wish to impose his own gravity upon those whose years it did not suit. His desire was to see his children happy, provided their happiness was innocent. What he feared in them was not any open excess, or outbreak into coarse vice, but a momentary turning away of the heart from God in the midst of social enjoyment, as if they felt that this enjoyment was better than religion or might fill its place in one's life.

The word translated "curse" means in usage to bless, hence to salute, 1 Samuel 25:14, either at meeting or parting, as the Oriental wishes the peace (salâm) or blessing of God upon one whom he meets or parts from, Genesis 47:7; Genesis 47:10. From this use of the word in taking leave it may have come to mean, to bid farewell to, and hence to disown or renounce. A similar secondary use is found in our own and the classical languages. Thus:

Valeat res ludicra.

Good bye the stage. Hor.

Farewell faint-hearted and degenerate King,

In whose cold blood no spark of honour bides.

K. Henry VI.

Si maxime talis est Deus, ut nulla gratia, nulla hominum caritate teneatur, valeat. Cic. Nat. Deor. 1. 44. See Aesch. Agam. 572; Plat. Phaedr. 58. These and other examples will be found in the commentaries. Others, assuming that the radical sense of the word is to kneel, Psalms 95:6, have supposed that the sense of cursemight arise from a person's kneeling to imprecate evil. But this is a far-fetched idea. Besides, the sense of curseis unsuitable in this passage as well as in the other places where the word occurs. Some such sense as "renounce" suits all the passages in Job and the only other passage where the sense of the word must be similar, 1 Kings 21:10.

It is curious that the sin which Job feared in his children as the consequence of drinking too deeply of the joys of life was the sin to which he himself was almost driven by the acuteness of his misery. So surrounded are we of God on every side.