Job 1:5

And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about ; rather, when the days of the feasting had come round ; i.e. whenever one of the birthdays had arrived in due course, and the feasting had taken place. That Job sent and sanctified them. In the old world, outside the Mosaic Law, the father of the family was the priest, to whom alone it belonged to bless, purify, and offer sacrifice. Job, after each birthday-feast, sent, it would seem, for his sons, and purified them by the accustomed ablutions, or possibly by some other ceremonial process, regarding it as probable that, in the course of their feasting, they had contracted some defilement. It would seem by the next clause that the purification took place at the close of the day of festivity. And rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings . Burnt offerings were instituted soon after the Fall, as we learn from Genesis 4:4 , and were in common use long before the Mosaic Law was given. The practice was common, so far as appears, to all the nations of antiquity, except the Persians (Herod; 1:132). According to the number of them all One, apparently, for each child, since each might have sinned in the way suggested. The offerings were clearly it. tended as expiatory. For Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts . Two wholly different meanings are assigned by good Hebraists to the expression ברך אחים . According to some, ברך has its usual sense, "to bless," and אלהים signifies "false gods," or "idols;" according to the others, who form the great majority, אלהים has its usual sense of "God," and ברך has the unusual sense of "curse". How the same word comes to have the two wholly opposite senses of "to bless" and "to curse" has been differently explained. Some think that, as men blessed their friends both on receiving them and on bidding them adieu, the word ברך got the sense of "bidding adieu to," "dismissing," "renouncing." Others regard the use of ברך for "to curse" as a mere euphemism, and compare the use of sacer and sacrari in Latin, and such expressions as " Bless the stupid man!" "What a blessed nuisance!" in English. The maledictory sense seems to be established by Job 2:9 and 1 Kings 21:10 . By "cursing God in their hearts" Job probably means "forgetting him," "putting him out of sight," "not giving him the honour which is his due." Thus did Job continually ; literally, as in the margin, all the days ; i.e. whenever one of the festival-days occurred.