Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 2:8
And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.
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 ) the Mzbalah, 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).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And he took him a potsherd – The word used here charash means a fragment of a broken vessel; see the notes at Isa 45:9. The Septuagint renders it ostrakon – a shell. One object of taking this was to remove from his body the filth accumulated by the universal ulcer, compare Job 7:4-5; and another design probably was, to indicate the greatness of his calamity and sorrow. The ancients were accustomed to show their grief by significant external actions (compare the notes at Job 1:20), and nothing could more strongly denote the greatness of the calamity, than for a man of wealth, honor, and distinction, to sit down in the ashes, to take a piece of broken earthen-ware, and begin to scrape his body covered over with undressed and most painful sores. It does not appear that anything was done to heal him, or any kindness shown in taking care of his disease. It would seem that he was at once separated from his home, as a man whom none would venture to approach, and was doomed to endure his suffering without sympathy from others.
To scrape himself withal – The word used here garad has the sense of grating, scraping, sawing; or to scrape or rasp with an edged tool. The same word identically, as to letters, is used at present among the Arabs; meaning to rasp or scrape with any kind of tool. The idea here seems to be, that Job took the pieces of broken pottery that he found among the ashes to scrape himself with.
And he sat down among the ashes – On the expressions of grief among the ancients, see the notes at Job 1:20. The general ideas of mourning among the nations of antiquity seem to have been, to strip off all their ornaments; to put on the coarsest apparel, and to place themselves in the most humiliating positions. To sit on the ground (see the note at Isa 3:26), or on a heap of ashes, or a pile of cinders, was a common mode of expressing sorrow; see the note at Isa 58:5. To wear sackcloth to shave their heads and their beards and to abstain from pleasant food and from all cheerful society, and to utter loud and long exclamations or shrieks, was also a common mode of indicating grief. The Vulgate renders this sedates in sterquilinio, sitting on a dunghill. The Septuagint, and he took a shell to scrape off the ichor ( ichora) the sanies, or filth produced by a running ulcer, and sat upon the ashes out of the city, implying that his grief was so excessive that he left the city and his friends, and went out to weep alone.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
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, Job 19:13-15; 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 Gods 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 42:6 Jon 3:6; Mat 11:21.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. a potsherdnot a piece of abroken earthen vessel, but an instrument made for scratching (theroot of the Hebrew word is “scratch”); the sore wastoo disgusting to touch. “To sit in the ashes” marks thedeepest mourning (Jon 3:6); alsohumility, as if the mourner were nothing but dust and ashes; soAbraham (Ge 18:27).
Job2:9-13. JOB REPROVESHIS WIFE.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
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; much less anything that looked like cursing God and blaspheming him, as some are said to do, because of their pains and their sores,
Re 16:11; but Job bore his with the utmost patience; he took a piece of a broken pot, which perhaps lay in the ashes among which he sat, and scraped himself with it; either as some think to allay the itching, or rather to remove the purulent matter that ran from his boils; which he used instead of linen rags to wipe them with, having no surgeon to come near him, to mollify his ulcers with ointment, to supple them with oil, and lay healing plasters upon them; there were none to do any of these things for him; his maids and his servants, and even his wife, stood at some distance from him; the smell of him might be so nauseous, that it was intolerable, he was obliged to do what was done himself, which is here mentioned; though it seems something strange and unnatural, considering his case; Schmidt thinks that this scraping was done by him as a rite and ceremony used by mourners in those times and countries, and which Job would not omit though his body was full of sores:
and he sat down among the ashes; which was often done in cases of mourning and humiliation, see Jon 3:6; and which Job did to humble himself under the mighty hand of God upon him; whether these ashes were outside or inside the house is not certain; some think they were outside, and that he had no house to dwell in, nor bed to lie on, nor couch to sit upon, and therefore was obliged to do as he did; but the contrary is evident from Job 7:13; others say, that his disease being the leprosy, he was obliged to sit alone and outside; but it is not certain that that was his disease; and besides, the law concerning lepers did not as yet exist; and had it, it would not have been binding on Job, who was not of the Israelitish nation: the vulgar notion that Job sat upon a dunghill outside the city has no other foundation than the Septuagint version of this passage, which is a wrong one; for his sitting in ashes, there might be a reason in nature, and it might be chosen on account of his disease; for ashes are a drier, and an abstersive of ulcers, and Galen f says they are used in fresh wounds to stop the flow of the blood.
f De simpl. Med. ad Paternian. apud Schenchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p. 661.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
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 of earthenware, (potsherd, or shard Old English for fragment.) that he might remove the filth of the sores, and allay the extreme itching.
Among the ashes In the Hauran, dung being unneeded for agricultural purposes, is burned from time to time in an appointed place outside the town. The heaps of ashes and filth soon attain a height greater than that of the highest buildings of the village. Wetzstein. Something of this kind the Septuagint may have had in view. This act of Job was, among the Orientals, a common symbol of extreme distress. Ulysses, after suffering shipwreck, placed himself mourning on a heap of ashes. Odyssey, 5:153, 160. (See note, Job 16:15.) Job, not unlike his divine Saviour, is the smitten of God. (Isa 53:4.) Leprosy was regarded by the ancients as a divine visitation. The Hebrews named it, “The stroke of the scourge,” a meaning that our own word plague (“stroke”) originally bore. Hence Jerome translates Isaiah, (chapter Isa 53:4,) “We did esteem him smitten ” by leprosus, or the leprous one, a name the Messiah bears also in the Talmud. Christ “bare our sins in his own body,” and on this account “there was a hiding of faces from him,” as from a leprous person. (Isa 53:3, margin.) Job, a type of Christ, is to all appearance rejected of God. The ban of God and man alike rests upon him. “If a Persian has the leprosy he is not allowed to enter into a city, or to have any dealings with the other Persians; he must, they say, have sinned against the sun.” Herodotus, 1:139. (See note, Job 19:21.)
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 2:8. And he took him a potsherd, &c. It is plain that the disease of Job was cuticular, says Dr. Mede; and it is as certain that the bodies of the Hebrews were (in those hot countries) very liable to ulcers of the skin; upon which account, learned men think it was, that they were forbidden the eating of swine’s flesh; which, as it affords a gross nourishment, and not easily perspirable, is very improper food in such constitutions; as by how much hotter the countries were which they inhabited (such as the Desarts of Arabia), the more severely these disorders raged. There is another much worse disease, so frequent in Egypt that it is said to be endemial there, though it may also be engendered in this hot country; I mean the elephantiasis. Perhaps it was this, which is nearly of the same nature with the leprosy, that had afflicted the body of our righteous man. The doctor remarks further, that it is not Job himself, nor his friends, but the author of the book, who attributes his calamities to Satan; for this writer’s intention seems to be, to shew, by a striking example, that the world is governed by the providence of Almighty God; and as the holy angels, whose ministry God makes use of in distributing his bountiful gifts, punctually execute all his commands; so Satan himself, with his agents, are under the power of God, and cannot inflict any evils on mankind without the divine permission. Possibly it may be agreeable to our readers to hear something further of this learned writer’s opinion of the book of Job in general; which, says he, may justly be esteemed the most ancient of all books whereof we have any certain account: for some are of opinion, that it was written in the time of the Patriarchs; many others, that it was composed about the days of Moses, and even by Moses himself; and there are but few who think it posterior to him. For my part, I embrace the learned Lightfoot’s opinion, that it was composed by Elihu; one of Job’s companions, chiefly because he therein speaks of himself as a writer; and if so, it will appear to be older than the days of Moses. I take it to be a dramatic poem, composed upon a true history, and perhaps with this design, that, from the example of this illustrious and upright, yet afflicted and most miserable man, the people of Israel might learn to bear with patience all those evils and hardships which they were daily suffering in their Egyptian captivity; nor can there be found, in my opinion, in this kind of writing, any thing more admirable, and better adapted to move the passions, than this piece; whether we regard the sublimity and elegance of its style, its natural descriptions, or the propriety of the characters ascribed to all the persons concerned in it. See his Medica Sacra, cap. 1: and Scheuchzer, tom. 6: p. 15.; see also the Reflections on this chapter.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
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, Psa 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
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
sat down = was sitting.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
took him: Job 19:14-17, Psa 38:5, Psa 38:7, Luk 16:20, Luk 16:21
he sat: Job 42:6, 2Sa 13:19, Isa 61:3, Eze 27:30, Jon 3:6, Mat 11:21
Reciprocal: 1Sa 2:8 – the poor 1Ki 20:41 – the ashes away Est 4:1 – with ashes Job 7:5 – flesh Job 30:19 – dust Psa 38:3 – soundness Psa 41:8 – An evil disease Psa 113:7 – needy Isa 1:6 – the sole Isa 3:26 – shall sit Isa 47:1 – down Isa 58:5 – to spread Lam 3:16 – covered me with ashes Mic 1:10 – roll Mat 8:32 – the whole Mar 5:5 – crying Rev 16:2 – a noisome
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 2:8. And he took a potsherd, &c. His children and servants were all dead, his wife unkind, and none of those whom he had formerly befriended had so much sense of honour and gratitude as to minister to him in his distress, to furnish him with linen clothes, or lend a hand to cleanse or dress his running sores; either because the disease was loathsome and offensive, or because they apprehended it to be infectious. Being therefore deprived of other relief, he laid hold on what was next at hand, a piece of a broken pot, or tile, to press out, or remove, the purulent matter which was under his ulcers, or flowed from them, and was the great cause of his pain; or to rub them, and allay the itching, which, as they began to die away, probably became intolerable. The Hebrew word , le-hithgared, here used, which we translate to scrape himself, occurs nowhere else in the Bible, but is said to be frequently used in Chaldee and Arabic in the sense of pulling off bark or leaves from trees, and is here rendered by the LXX. , that he might wipe off, or cleanse away, the corrupt matter. And sat down among the ashes , upon the dung-hill without the city, say the Seventy. Here he would easily find a potsherd at hand, but not any clean and soft linen clothes, much less any ointments, salves, or plasters, proper for the healing of his sores. But it is probable, if he had had such things at hand he would not have used them; for as he sat down in this place, in dust and ashes, as mourners used to do, humbling himself under the mighty hand of God, so, in the same spirit of self-abasement and humiliation, he would have declined all things that savoured of tenderness and delicacy, and have still used his potsherd.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2:8 And he took him a {i} potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.
(i) As destitute of all other help and means and wonderfully afflicted with the sorrow of his disease.