Job 1:5

Job sent and sanctified them... — The earnest records of society exhibit the father of the family acting as the priest. This is one of the passages that show Job was outside the pale and influence of the Mosaic law, whether this was owing to his age or his country. His life in this respect corresponds with that of the patriarchs in Genesis more nearly than any other in Scripture.

Cursed God. — The word used here and in Job 1:11 and Job 2:5; Job 2:9, and also in 1 Kings 21:10; 1 Kings 21:13, of Naboth, is literally blessed; that in Job 3:1, e.g., &c., being quite different. The contrast in Job 1:22; Job 2:10 snows the Authorised Version to be substantially right, however this contradictory sense is obtained Many languages have words which are used in opposite senses. (Comp. e.g., our “cleave to” and “cleave.”) The use of bless in the sense of curse may be a euphemism, or it may arise from giving to it the meaning of saluting or bidding farewell to, and so dismissing. This use is not elsewhere found than in the passages cited above.