The Next Generation

Okay, so we’ve met blameless Job.  We will believe what we’ve been told about him, but we don’t actually have anything real to go on.  At least not until verse 4. The kids.  I get the feeling they’re not quite as upright as Job is. 

Job 1:4 – His sons used to take turns hosting parties in their homes, always inviting their three sisters to join them in their merrymaking. (The Message)

Job 1:4 – His sons used to go and hold feasts in one another’s houses in turn; and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. (NRSV)

Maybe their parties are the kind that are allowed in the 410,000 rules of the OT, but the way they’re mentioned in the text makes them sound more like keggers that make the neighbors call the police.  (Yes, I could be reading something into that, but I’ve had teenagers in the house fairly recently, and I’m just sayin’.)

I do think it’s safe to guess that these are big parties:  just the siblings would be 10 people, and you know it’s never just the siblings.  Do they invite Job, too? It doesn’t sound like it, but he does know they happen because he considers it his job to clean up after them … spiritually.  Ritually.  Make amends not for what they did, but for anything they might have done. 

What a party pooper. 

Job 1:5 – When the parties were over, Job would get up early in the morning and sacrifice a burnt offering for each of his children, thinking, “Maybe one of them sinned by defying God inwardly.” Job made a habit of this sacrificial atonement, just in case they’d sinned. (The Message)

Job 1:5 – And when the feast days had run their course, Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, “It may be that my children have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.” This is what Job always did. (NRSV)

“According to the number of them all.”  “For each of his children.”   Job didn’t just do one big sacrifice and hope it would cover the lot.  He did 10.  Or maybe only 7 if the daughters don’t count.  I kind of get the feelings that the daughters counted, though.  They seem to be sought after party guests, and those might be the kind of people who need some vicarious atonement the next day.

Also, you know what they say about preacher’s kids, right?  Maybe the same was true even back then.  Maybe they had lived a life of ease and were riding their dad’s upright coattails, safe and secure in the knowledge that their dad would do whatever needed to be done to bail them out of OT jail.

And Job did.

Job didn’t know that they’d sinned by cursing or defying God.  But he still made burnt offerings.  For each kid.  Just in case.  Every. Single. Time his kids had a party. And it sounds like his kids had lots of parties.

Job might have been blameless, but he worried. A lot.  Blameless and upright means that the rules matter to you.  You follow them, and you expect others to do, too.  It’s hard when that’s not the case, especially if those non-rule-followers are your own offspring.  How would that make Job feel?  How would that make Job look? 

Blameless and upright really sounds like a pain in the butt, doesn’t it?  It doesn’t sound like Job gets any joy out of these burnt offerings.  He does them maybe out of fear, maybe out of habit, maybe out of a need to protect an image. 

Don’t get me wrong:  worrying comes naturally to me, too.  There are a lot of times where I feel like I’m no fun, and I would certainly never be considered the life of the party, but next to Job, I’m like NYC on NYE. 

What’s the point of being blameless and upright, anyway?  And why does Job feel such a strong need to defend it?