Potsherd

Potsherd is figuratively used in Scripture to denote a thing worthless and insignificant (Psa 22:15; Pro 26:23; Isa 45:9). It may illustrate some of these allusions to remind the reader of the fact, that the sites of ancient towns are often covered at the surface with great quantities of broken pottery. The present writer has usually found this pottery to be of coarse texture, but coated and protected with a strong and bright-colored glaze, mostly bluish-green, and sometimes yellow. These fragments give to some of the most venerable sites in the world the appearance of a deserted pottery rather than of a town. The fact is, however, that they occur only upon the sites of towns which were built with crude brick; and this suggests that the heaps of ruin into which these had fallen being disintegrated, and worn at the surface by the action of the weather, bring to view and leave exposed the broken pottery, which is not liable to be thus dissolved and washed away. This explanation was suggested by the actual survey of such ruins; and we know not that a better has yet been offered in any other quarter. It is certainly remarkable that of the more mighty cities of old time, nothing but potsherds now remain visible at the surface of the ground.

Towns built with stone, or kiln-burnt bricks, do not exhibit this form of ruin, which is, therefore, not usually met with in Palestine.

Potsherd. Also, in Authorized Version, "sherd," a broken piece of earthenware. Pro 26:23.

heres. "Sherd," anything "serered". A piece of earthenware broken. Pro 26:23, "burning lips (lips professing burning love) and a wicked heart are like a potsherd (a fragment of common earthenware) silvered over with dross"; implying "roughness, dryness, and brittleness". Psa 22:15, "my strength is dried up like a potsherd" or earthen vessel exposed to heat; the drying up of the vital juices caused Christ’s excessive thirst (Joh 19:28). In Job 2:8 not a potsherd but an instrument for scratching is meant. Isa 45:9, i.e. whatever good one might promise himself from striving with his fellow creature of earth, to strive with one’s Maker is suicidal madness (Isa 27:4).

A fragment of pottery, to which man is compared when he strives with his Maker. Isa 45:9. David quotes the word in the Psalm prophetical of the Lord’s sacrificial sufferings, "My strength is dried up like a potsherd." Psa 22:15. It is employed literally in Job 2:8; Pro 26:23, and translated ’sherd’ in Isa 30:14; Eze 23:34.

POTSHERD.—See Pottery.

pot´shûrd (חרשׂ, ḥeres): A piece of earthenware (Job 2:8; Psa 22:15; Isa 45:9). the Revised Version (British and American) renders the word in Pro 26:23, “an earthen vessel,” and in Job 41:30 substitutes “sharp potsherds” for “sharp stones.” Sirach 22:7 refers to the art of “gluing a potsherd (ὄστρακον, óstrakon) together.” See HARSITH; OSTRACA.

Psa 22:15 (b) A potsherd is a piece of a broken clay pot which has no value. The Lord is describing in figurative language the way He would suffer on Calvary, be broken, and apparently have no value to GOD or to men.

Pro 26:23 (b) This is a remarkable description of a hypocrite. The potsherd is worthless and the silver dross is worthless, yet the dross on the potsherd is an effort to make it look attractive and appear valuable.

Isa 45:9 (a) Man is described as a broken piece of gourd fighting with and arguing with another man who is also a piece of a gourd. It is an expression of derision and contempt.