Teks -- Job 2:8 (NET)

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

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per frasa)

Wesley: Job 2:8 - Scrape

This he did not with soft linen clothes, either because he had not now a sufficient quantity of them; 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; but with potsherds, either because they were next at hand, and ready for his present use; or in token of his deep humiliation under God's hand, which made him decline all things that favoured of tenderness and delicacy. Heb. in dust or ashes, as mourners used to do. If God lay him among the ashes, there he will contentedly sit down. A low spirit becomes low circumstances, and will help to reconcile us to them.

JFB: Job 2:8 - a potsherd

Not a piece of a broken earthen vessel, but an instrument made for scratching (the root of the Hebrew word is "scratch"); the sore was too disgusting to touch. "To sit in the ashes" marks the deepest mourning (Jon 3:6); also humility, as if the mourner were nothing but dust and ashes; so Abraham (Gen 18:27).

TSK: Job 2:8 - took him // he sat

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

Tafsiran/Catatan -- Catatan Kata/Frasa (per Ayat)

Poole: Job 2:8 - He took him a potsherd // 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, 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 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 42:6 Jon 3:6 Mat 11:21 .

Haydock: Job 2:8 - Potsherd // Dunghill

Potsherd. His nails were worn, and poverty had left him nothing else. ---

Dunghill. Hebrew, "ashes." (Haydock) ---

St. Chrysostom represents this place as visited by pilgrims, instructive and more brilliant than any throne. (Hom. 5. ad Pop. Ant.) -- Septuagint add, "upon the dung, without the city: and after a long time had elapsed, his wife also said to him, How long wilt thou wait, saying: Lo, I will still tarry a little while, expecting the hope of my salvation? For behold thy memory is perished from the land, thy sons and daughters, the pains and labours of my womb, whom I brought forth in labour and sorrow, to no purpose. But thou sittest in the open air, the night long, amid the corruption of worms, while I wander like a slave, seeking for one place and house after another, in expectation of the sun setting, that my labours may cease, and the sorrows which now surround and hold me fast. But speak thou some word to (or against) the Lord, and die." (Haydock) ---

This addition has been omitted in the Complutensian edition, to make it like the Vulgate, (Calmet) though it is found in all the Greek copies (Nobilius) and fathers, and also in several Latin Bibles. It seems, however, to be only a gloss of some transcriber. The devil had not destroyed this wife, as she would prove one of his most powerful auxiliaries. (Calmet)

Gill: Job 2:8 - And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal // and he sat down among the ashes

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, Rev 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.