But the next touch that is added is intended to bring out
afresh the other equally essential element in Job's long
career of happiness ; not his prosperity, but his blamelessness,
his more than blamelessness, his warm-hearted affection, and
his genuine piety. We have in him a character untaintedjjy
riches, unspoilt by success. When the full cycle of seven
days, a number sacred in other Eastern nations than the
Jewish, is complete, the father comes upon the scene. There
is a momentary obscurity in the language; but there is
nothing to mar the picture of fatherly love. At sun-rise on ver. 5.
the eighth day, the first day of a fresh week, the father rises,
and, as it would seem, with his children round him, and after
some simple lustraP, or purifying ceremony, offers in their be-
half a sacrifice for each. As this Patriarchal head of a Gentile
family stands by the altar-side, you see how far removed we
are from the atmosphere of an Aaronic Priesthood and a
Levitical ritual, of that sacerdotal system whose passing away
before the coming of the Great High Priest is even now the

* And his sons went and held a feast in the house of each one upon
his day. — R.V. See p. 23.
* He sanctified them. — v. 5.
32 The Book of Job.
