When the most tragic of the calamities that befell Job happened, his kids were all feasting and drinking wine. We tend to think of that as partying, but I cannot say I am sure that that was the case. While studying the various versions, I saw a gap in just what these parties were all about and how Job responded to them before tragedy struck.

Verse 2 of chapter 1 tells us that Job had seven sons (seven being the perfect number matching the number of days of the week) and three daughters (seven plus three being ten and representing completeness). Verse 4 tells us that these seven sons would rotate hosting a feast among themselves and invite their sisters.

The gap is how often did these feasts happen and what was the purpose. One option is that they had a party each year on their birthday. There was not much historical fanfare on birthdays at this time (as near as I can tell), and calendars were not so important, so I am not really high on the birthday theme.

Another option is that they were seven feasts through out the year and each brother was in charge of the meal for that feast. I am thinking the harvest feast, the planting feast, the summer feast, or any string of things like these associated with the natural cycle of an agrarian society. There is not really much detail I understand about farming and ranching, but it seems logical and fits in with the feasts of a lot of cultures.

A less understood option would be some set of religious feasts. Since this was basically a Hebrew story and occurred before the exodus from Egypt, I do not see a lot of historical backing for a set of “Jewish” feasts.

Another option that makes some sense goes back to the number seven. Seven days in a week and seven sons means they might have eaten dinner together every night rotating houses. I could see this if the whole family lived in a compound or a little village rather than spread out across the corners of Jobs lands to care for the flocks and crops. This option makes a lot of sense, but makes the term feasting a potential bad fit for the translation.

The focus of the feasting in the story (in verse 5) was really the efforts Job went to do align himself with God by sacrificing on his kid’s behalf. Whether he did it every day, every kid’s birthday, or once a year is not really important. What is important is that Job took the concept of blaspheming God very serious for himself and his family and he went to great lengths to make sure God knew where his heart was.

Before getting to the meat of verse 5, I wanted to stop here and consider who Job was. Genesis tells us the story of man highlighting the acts of Adam, Noah, and the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Adam lived 930 years, had Cain, Abel, Seth, and other sons and daughters. Noah was born 126 years later and the flood wiped out everyone else 600 years after that. There is a chance the story of Job comes from this period of 1656 years. For anyone couting, that is a long time.

After the flood, Noah’s family grew for 292 years before Abraham came along. There is a chance that the story of Job comes from this period. We know the story of Job did not happen to Abraham, Isaac or Jacob, so based on the movement of and success of these individuals, we do not really think that a pious Job would have occurred in the same region while these three were receiving God’s blessings.

So after Jacob’s family was moved on to Egypt, there is a period of about 400 years while the region was empty of Isaac’s descendants. But after Sara died, Abraham had another wife and had other sons and daughters. Therefore, the story could be about someone inside Abraham’s family, either from Ishmael or from one of these other children. I personally think this is the most logical time period and that Job was a descendant of Abraham’s. We know that Ishmael was with Isaac when Sara was buried and we know Isaac’s son Esau married one of Ishmael daughters. So the family that Jacob left behind in the area was interacting and vast, as Abraham had at least six other sons and Ishmael alone had twelve sons.

This side of the family would have developed within the same framework that Isaac and Jacob and his twelve kids grew up in. They could have developed a set of agrarian or religious feasts and the setting for Job and his experience in the land abandoned by Jacobs’ family.

Either way, I found the options for when Job occurred, who he was related to, and just what were the feasts all about as a fascinating set of rabbit trails to follow and discuss. More on the aspects of partying after a look at verse 5.