Job 2:8

2:8 Job took a shard of broken pottery to scrape himself with while he was sitting among the ashes.

Jeremiah 6:26

6:26 So I said, “Oh, my dear people, put on sackcloth

and roll in ashes.

Mourn with painful sobs

as though you had lost your only child.

For any moment now that destructive army

will come against us.”

Lamentations 3:29

3:29 Let him bury his face in the dust;

perhaps there is hope.


tn The verb גָּרַד (garad) is a hapax legomenon (only occurring here). Modern Hebrew has retained a meaning “to scrape,” which is what the cognate Syriac and Arabic indicate. In the Hitpael it would mean “scrape himself.”

sn The disease required constant attention. The infection and pus had to be scraped away with a piece of broken pottery in order to prevent the spread of the infection. The skin was so disfigured that even his friends did not recognize him (2:12). The book will add that the disease afflicted him inwardly, giving him a foul breath and a loathsome smell (19:17, 20). The sores bred worms; they opened and ran, and closed and tightened (16:8). He was tormented with dreams (7:14). He felt like he was choking (7:14). His bones were racked with burning pain (30:30). And he was not able to rise from his place (19:18). The disease was incurable; but it would last for years, leaving the patient longing for death.

tn The construction uses the disjunctive vav (ו) with the independent pronoun with the active participle. The construction connects this clause with what has just been said, making this a circumstantial clause.

sn Among the ashes. It is likely that the “ashes” refers to the place outside the city where the rubbish was collected and burnt, i.e., the ash-heap (cf. CEV). This is the understanding of the LXX, which reads “dung-hill outside the city.”

tn These words are not in the text but are implicit from the context.

tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the translator’s note there.

tn Heb “suddenly.”

tn Heb “the destroyer.”

tn Heb “Let him put his mouth in the dust.”