Job 2:8

And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal,.... His mouth was shut, his lips were silent, not one murmuring and repining word came from him, amidst all this anguish and misery he must be in;

And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.

He took him a potsherd; partly to allay the itch which his ulcers caused; and partly to squeeze out or take away that purulent matter which was under them, or flowed from them, and was the great cause of his torment. And this he did not with soft linen cloths, either because he had not now a sufficient quantity of them for so much use, or because therein he must have had the help of others, who abhorred to come near him, ; nor with his own hands or fingers, which were also ulcerous, and so unfit for that use; and besides he loathed to touch himself: but with potsherds, either because they were next at hand, and ready for his present use; or in token of his repentance and deep humiliation under God’ s heavy hand, which made him decline all things which favoured of tenderness and delicacy. Among the ashes, Heb. in dust or ashes, as mourners used to do; of which see .

Job 2:8 And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.Ver. 8. And he took him a potsherd] A piece of a broken pot, for want of better; ointments he had none, nor baths, to lenify his soreness. Physicians and friends were far from him. He looked on his right band, and beheld, but there was no man that would know him: refuge failed and perished from him; no man cared for his soul, Psalms 142:4. He had still a wife and servants, and (as some think) his household stuff left him. He should therefore by them have been helped; but they helped on his misery, jeering him, and jesting at him, as he afterwards complaineth. Himself, therefore, in this necessity, taketh a potsherd, a piece of earthen pot, thereby to mind himself, saith Gregory, that he was of the earth, earthy, For which cause also He sat down among the ashes] Or dust, as repenting in dust and ashes, Job 42:6. So Jonah 3:6 Matthew 11:23. The Septuagint say that he sat upon the dirt or dung, for want of a better cushion, and that he was laid without the city, as if, for the stink and ill savour that came from him, he was not suffered to be in the city (επιτηςκοπριαςεξωτηςπολεως), as Uzziah, afterwards, being a leper, dwelt in a house by himself alone, 2 Chronicles 26:21. Disce hic, si aegrotas, saith Lavater, Learn here, if thou be sick, and have help about thee of friends, food, medicine, clean linen, and the like, to show thyself patient; poor Job had none of all this. Nay, the Lord Christ had not whereon to rest his head. Sin autem omni cura et solatio es destitutus, But if moreover all care and comfort is wanting, saith he: But say thou be destitute of all cure and comfort, forced to lie without doors, and upon the hard ground; say thou be in such a condition, that thou canst neither stand nor go, nor sit, nor lie, nor eat (either for want of food or want of stomach); comfort thyself with this and the like examples of the saints. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and what end the Lord made, James 5:11. He raiseth the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory, 1 Samuel 2:8. Again, let no man trust to his present prosperity. Job, who heretofore spake not to his subjects but from his throne, was now seated upon a dunghill; and his hands, accustomed to bear the sceptre, were employed to wipe the matter which distilled from his sores, as the French paraphrast hath it.

8. and he sat down among the ashes] Rather, as he sat among. By the “ashes” is possibly meant (as the Sept. already understands, which translates ἐπὶτῆςκοπρίας) the Mαzbalah, the place outside the Arabic towns where the zibl, that is, dung and other rubbish of the place is thrown. “The dung which is heaped up upon the Mezbele of the Hauran villages is not mixed with straw, which in that warm and dry land is not needed for litter, and it comes mostly from solid-hoofed animals, as the flocks and oxen are left over night in the grazing places. It is carried in baskets in a dry state to this place before the village, and usually burnt once a month … The ashes remain … If the village has been inhabited for centuries the Mezbele reaches a height far overtopping it. The winter rains reduce it into a compact mass, and it becomes by and bye a solid hill of earth … The Mezbele serves the inhabitants for a watchtower, and in the sultry evenings for a place of concourse, because there is a current of air on the height. There all day long the children play about it; and there the outcast, who has been stricken with some loathsome malady, and is not allowed to enter the dwellings of men, lays himself down, begging an alms of the passers-by by day, and by night sheltering himself among the ashes which the heat of the sun has warmed. There too lie the village dogs, perhaps gnawing a fallen carcase, which is often flung there.” Wetzstein in Delitzsch, Comm. on Job , 2 Ed. p. 62 (Trans, vol. II, p. 152).

And he took him a potsherd - The word used here חרשׁ chârâsh means a fragment of a broken vessel; see the notes at Isaiah 45:9.

8. Potsherd — The Septuagint renders, “And he took a shell to scrape away the ulcerous discharge, and sat upon a dung heap outside the city.” As the sores were too loathsome to touch, he took a piece