And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself while he sat in the ashes.
Boils have struck Job from head to foot. The great man of the east now sits in the ash heap with a broken piece of pottery in his hand. It is the lowest point of his suffering. Who put him there? Why? And were the ashes the end of his story?
The Fall From Greatness
The picture is one of total reversal. A rich and powerful man now sits where the town burns its rubbish.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinWhat a sad transformation! He was the great chief of the east, once so rich and influential. Now he has lost all his possessions and is reduced to the most complete poverty. A vile and extremely painful disease afflicts him. He takes his place on the rubbish heap, among the ashes of the burnt refuse. He considers himself an outcast, unfit for a human home.
Potsherd and Ashes
Both objects in Job's hand and under him carry meaning. One says something about grief; the other says something about the man himself. And the writer notices that scraping his skin achieved about as much as his thinking achieved for his soul.
Samuel RidoutWho that knew him in his days of prosperity could have recognised him now, sitting in ashes and scraping himself with a piece of broken pottery, in such wretched misery? The ashes suggest his mourning for his losses, above all for the loved ones he lost. The broken pottery may well picture his own broken condition. He tries in vain to relieve the unbearable pain and itching of his festering sores. His self-examination is just as powerless to relieve the sufferings of his soul.
A Boundary Satan Could Not Cross
The boils were Satan's work. But God set a fence around them, and that fence explains why Job is scraping himself instead of dying.
Job therefore was beyond harm; no one could touch his person. But after this the almighty power of God extends Satan's power further, though still with a boundary he could not pass. God allowed Satan's power to afflict his body. "But," says the Lord, "only spare his life." At once we hear that sore boils cover Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Yet God spared his life. And when his afflictions had done the work for which the Lord permitted them, He took them away. For we read that the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.
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Why God Allowed It
Satan struck the blow, but God permitted it. The reason lay below the surface, where Job could not see.
C. H. MackintoshIt is very clear that Job needed a severe sifting. Had he not needed it, we may be sure the gracious, loving Lord would not have passed him through it. It was not for nothing that He let Satan loose on His dear servant. God loved Job with a perfect love. But it was a wise and faithful love. It took account of everything. It looked below the surface and saw the deep moral roots in the heart of His servant — roots Job had never seen, and so had never judged.
Sitting in Ashes Is Not Yet Repentance
Here is the point that is easy to miss. Job's endurance in the ash heap was genuine, yet the same writer insists that a man can be flattened by loss and still be untouched where it counts.
C. H. MackintoshIf it had only been a question of Job's patience, that patience would have become another ground for self-confidence. Then the Lord would never have reached the end He had in view. Always remember this: only the truly repentant and broken-hearted taste the Lord's pity and tender mercy. Now Job was not this, even when he lay among the ashes. He was not yet thoroughly broken down before God. He was still the great man — great in his misfortunes as he had been in his prosperity.
The Ashes He Chose
Satan puts Job in the ashes here. At the end of the book Job chooses the same place for himself, and for a different reason.
H. H. SnellHe takes hold, as it were, of his own righteousness, strength, and imagined goodness, and condemns it all. More than that, he sets self completely aside as vile and worthless: "I despise myself." In this self-loathing state he confesses a change of mind: "I repent." He lies down in the dust in self-abhorrence, because he admits that self is only fit to lie low in the dust, and buried out of God's sight... and he takes the place of ashes, as withered up under the trial of the searching fire of an infinitely holy God.
Summary
- Ashes given. Satan strips Job to the rubbish heap, where he counts himself an outcast, unfit for a human home.
- Ashes measured. The blow stays inside God's boundary: his flesh, not his life, and only until it has done its work.
- Ashes explained. The sifting came from a wise and faithful love that saw roots in Job's heart he had never seen or judged.
- Ashes endured. Patience alone would only have fed his self-confidence. A man can lie in ashes and still be unbroken before God.
- Ashes chosen. The change comes when Job takes the place of ashes himself, despises self, and repents — and God blesses his latter days more than his beginning.