Why did Job Sacrifice for His Children?

Is it OK that Job sacrificed on behalf of his children?

Job 1:4 and 5 tell us that Job sacrificed for his children, just in case they sinned against God:

^KJVJob 1:4 [And/Now] his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them.
^KJVJob 1:5 And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and [sanctified/consecrated] them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all:
for Job said,
It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.
Thus did Job continually.

Job’s Children Liked Each Other

So, apparently Job’s sons would have all of their siblings over to eat. And this was a regular pattern. Each of the seven sons would have the nine other siblings over. I’m not sure if this was happening every day of every week or if it was spread out throughout a month – but the point is that they would be eating at each other’s houses. They liked each other! They had a good family relationship.

Job Was Concerned for His Children’s Spiritual Wellbeing

But the even bigger point is that Job was concerned for them. Yes – they had a really good relationship with one another. But you know what Job was more concerned for? That they had a good relationship with God.

Job Was a Family Priest

He would sacrifice for them – just in case they sinned. He was acting as a priest for them – which reinforces the idea that they were outside of Israel and before the Mosaic Law. If they lived in Israel under the Mosaic Law, then the law prescribed priests in a Tabernacle or Temple. Job here is just sacrificing to the true God – but he’s doing it by himself outside any Temple. He’s a priest for his family.

He could be happy enough with his riches and his family. But he’s most concerned about the spiritual aspects of life.

Some Say Job Went Too Far

This man is commendable to all of us. Now, I read a commentary that said that Job was basically a little overwrought in his spiritual activities. Like, basically, Job is showing an unhealthy level of concern for his family’s spiritual state. Perhaps Job – said this commentator – is showing that his view of God is deficient. Like, Job is driven into an almost slave-like mentality where he’s basically operating under fear of God’s reprisal for the least pretense of sin.

Job Was Right to Sacrifice for His Children

But I just don’t think that’s the right way to interpret Job’s actions. That’s surely not the way that the narrator wants us to view Job’s activities. I mean – we’ve already been told that Job is pure and upright. He fears God. He turns from evil. I just don’t think that the way we’ve been introduced to Job allows us to think of his activity as superstition or driven by an unwholesome fear.

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Comments

8 responses to “Why did Job Sacrifice for His Children?”

July 6, 2020

Debie Mabulac

Only God knows the state and motives of one’s heart. So if God already declared in Job 1:8 that he is blameless and upright man, doesn’t this mean that the intents of his heart and action were acceptable to God and pure? I can’t imagine how can one still interpret his actions as one in a spirit of fear which is contrary to someone who was already declared as ” blameless”..

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August 19, 2020

Methusala Joy

first of all No where the bible says that he sacrificed in fear.
secondly with fear he did not hide from God. fear that leads towards God to sacrife and reconcile is a good kind of fear.
Apostle Paul had this type of fear
2 corinthians 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
What’s wrong with such fear. God praised that fear.
8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
God praised Job’s fearofear of God.

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1. September 15, 2020
  
  Fred
  
  Wat is fear?
  
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  1. May 1, 2022
    
    Diligenthandsep@gmail.com
    
    A rib this particular passage it’s a reverence towards god which is a good thing to have
    
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October 25, 2020

Davy

Now at the end of his trial, Job prayed for his friends and God heard his prayer. Why wouldn’t God hear his prayer for his children? Unless of course if they didn’t repent sincerely.

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1. October 26, 2020
  
  Paul
  
  Job was probably not praying that they wouldn’t die, but rather that they would live forever.
  
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2. May 10, 2023
  
  Sandra de Roubaix
  
  Job ASSUMED his children had sinned. He could not know for certain. In doing do , he judged them based on incomplete knowledge. I am.not sure what the consequences would be for offering a sacrifice on these terms. His judgement coupled with expressing the fear: ‘what I have FEARED has come upon me’ led to the legal case in which the Antidikos/ Accuser could legally accuse him before God. Not only did he judge without all the facts, he expressed fear- the opposite of faith. He seemed to falter in God’s ability to protect him and what was his. It is important to note that Job was an elder who sat in the gates of the city to do the work of a judge.
  
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  1. July 23, 2024
    
    Scott
    
    this is false. There is no record anywhere in the Bible where a parents fear leads to their children’s death when their children are grown up as adults able to believe on their own. Even in the gospels the the story with Jesus and the child who was held by his parents believing because he was just that, a child. It’s not until the child has grown up to believe in their own along with suffer consequences from their own actions, not by the actions of their parents. There aren’t any records of someone making a sacrifice by mistake or by fear and all the people connected to that person die. Fear doesn’t somehow transmit through the air through some form of osmosis into other people by yourself. God told Satan that he was moving against Job “without cause”. Job 2:3. The word without cause is the Hebrew means “without purpose or without any reason, innocent, for no reason explained, or in vain with no proof”. When job asks God at the end of job “weigh me in the scales, where did I go wrong, prove what it did wrong, show me what I did, etc”. God never answers job. God could of easily said “because of thy false prayer, or false sacrifice.” Even king David was confronted in the Old Testament for his sin and many are told the consequences of fear. Yet somehow job never gets an explanation. Why? Because the book of job is about the goodness of God and the badness of the devil. And within that context we see that the devil attacks even “righteous” people, for no reason and often making it appear as if righteous people must not be righteous at all because of what happens to them at times. Surely this was what jobs miserable comforters thought. Yet God continually says within the context of job 1–2 that job did not sin, nor charge God. Satan argued that the only reason job loved God and worshipped God was because of the abundance in his life (children, etc). But because job never blamed God, he proved Satan wrong in that job always loved God and worshipped God because he is God. We know from the New Testament where scripture reminds us how Eve was beguiled by the serpent and sinned. Yet when job is mentioned in the New Testament the only thing we learn is his “endurance” and Gods mercy. Not fear. Matter of fact it’s never even mentioned by God himself.
    
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