Job 1:5

Just as frugality and concord flourished in Job's house, so a holy solicitude for the purity which riches frequently destroy or diminish flourished in Job himself. As Deuteronomy says, "But he waxed fat, and kicked," and further on, "and he forsook the God who made …

ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION. And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. 'The days of feasting are gone,' when the ministrations of preaching are brought to an end; and when the feasts were ended, Job offered an holocaust for his sons, in that our Redeemer besought the Father in behalf of the Apostles, when they returned from preaching.

May be - His zeal for God's glory, and his true love to his children, made him jealous. Cursed - Not in a gross manner, which it is not probable either that they should do, or that Job should suspect it concerning them, but despised or dishonoured God; for both Hebrew and Greek words signifies cursing, are sometimes used to note only, reviling or setting light by a person.

Still he was the priest of the family, and at his altar they all attended, valuing their share in his prayers more than their share in his estate. Parents cannot give grace to their children (it is God that sanctifies), but they ought by seasonable admonitions and counsels to further their sanctification.

And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about,....

GESENIUS says, the original sense is to "kneel," and thus it came to mean bending the knee in order to invoke either a blessing or a curse. Cursing is a perversion of blessing, as all sin is of goodness. Sin is a degeneracy, not a generation.

JOB was an exceedingly happy man before his great trial. He was as much blessed in the fruit of his body as in his basket, and in his store. Our text gives us a very pleasing picture of Job's family.

JOB was an exceedingly happy man before his great trial. He was as much blessed in the fruit of his body as in his basket, and in his store. Our text gives us a very pleasing picture of Job's family. He was a happy man to have had so many children all comfortably settled in life; for you will perceive that they all had houses; they had left his roof; they had all established themselves, and had so prospered in the world that there was not one of them who had not enough of the world's goods to entertain all the rest. So it seemed as if Job's prosperity in his business had attended his children in the different places where they had settled. To add to his comfort they were an undivided family—not like Abraham's household, where there was an Ishmael who mocked Isaac; nor like Isaac's household, where there was an Esau and a Jacob who sought to supplant him; nor like Jacob's household, where there was a Joseph, and all the rest of his brothers were envious and jealous of him; nor like David's household, where there was perpetual strife and bickering between the one and the other. Job's descendants were a large tribe; but they were all united and knit together in bonds of perfect happiness; and moreover they seem to have had a great desire to preserve their unity as a family.

When the days of their feasting were gone about - At the conclusion of the year, when the birthday of each had been celebrated, the pious father appears to have gathered them all together, that the whole family might hold a feast to the Lord, offering burnt-offerings in order to make an atonement for sins of all kinds, whether presumptuous or committed through ignorance. This we may consider as a general custom among the godly in those ancient times. And cursed God in their hearts - וברכו אלהים uberechu Elohim. In this book, according to most interpreters, the verb ברך barach signifies both to bless and to curse; and the noun אלהים Elohim signifies the true God, false gods, and great or mighty. The reason why Job offered the burnt-offerings appears to have been this: in a country where idolatry flourished, he thought it possible that his children might, in their festivity, have given way to idolatrous thoughts, or done something prescribed by idolatrous rites; and therefore the words may be rendered thus: It may be that my children have blessed the gods in their hearts. Others think that the word ברך barach should be understood as implying farewell, bidding adieu - lest my children have bidden adieu to God, that is, renounced him, and cast off his fear. To me this is very unlikely. Mr. Mason Good contends that the word should be understood in its regular and general sense, to bless; and that the conjunction ו vau should be translated nor. “Peradventure my sons may have sinned, nor blessed God in their hearts.” This version he supports with great learning. I think the sense given above is more plain, and less embarrassed. They might have been guilty of some species of idolatry. […]