Ashes

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ASHES.—Ashes on the head formed one of the ordinary tokens of mourning for the dead (see Mourning Customs as of private (2Sa_13:19) and national humiliation (Neh_9:1, 1Ma_3:47). The penitent and the afflicted might also sit (Job_2:8, Jon_3:6) or even wallow in ashes (Jer_6:25, Eze_27:30). In 1Ki_20:38; 1Ki_20:41 we must, with RV [Note: Revised Version.] , read ‘Headband’ (wh. see) for ‘ashes.’
In a figurative sense the term ‘ashes’ is often used to signify evanescence, worthlessness, insignificance (Gen_18:27, Job_30:19). ‘Proverbs of ashes’ (Pro_13:12 RV [Note: Revised Version.] ) is Job’s equivalent for the modern ‘rot.’ For the use of ashes in the priestly ritual see Red Heifer.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909


Sitting down in, or covering one's self with, is the symbol of mourning (Job_2:8; Job_42:6; Est_4:1; Isa_61:3; Mat_11:21). To eat asides expresses figuratively mourning is one's food, i.e. one's perpetual portion (Psa_102:9). "He feedeth on ashes," i.e., tries to feed his soul with what is at once humiliating and unsatisfying, on an idol which ought to have been reduced to ashes, like the rest of the tree of which it is made (Isa_44:20). The ashes of a red heifer burnt entire (Numbers 19), when sprinkled upon, purified ceremonially the unclean (Heb_9:13) but defiled the clean person.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.


Ashes. The ashes on the Altar of Burnt Offering were gathered into a cavity in its surface. The ashes of a red heifer burnt entire, according to regulations prescribed in Numbers 19, had the ceremonial efficacy of purifying the unclean, Heb_9:13, but of polluting the clean. See Sacrifice. Ashes about the person, especially on the head, were used as a sign of sorrow. See Mourning.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863


Several religious ceremonies, and some symbolical ones, anciently depended upon the use of ashes. To repent in sackcloth and ashes, or, as an external sign of self-affliction for sin, or of suffering under some misfortune, to sit in ashes, are expressions common in Scripture. “I am but dust and ashes,” exclaims Abraham before the Lord, Gen_18:27; indicating a deep sense of his own meanness in comparison with God. God threatens to shower down dust and ashes on the lands instead of rain, Deu_28:24; thereby to make them barren instead of blessing them, to dry them up instead of watering them. Tamar, after the injury she had received from Amnon, covered her head with ashes, 2Sa_13:19. The Psalmist, in great sorrow, says poetically, he had “eaten ashes as it were bread, Psa_102:9; that is, he sat on ashes, he threw ashes on his head; and his food, his bread, was sprinkled with the ashes wherewith he was himself covered. So Jeremiah introduces Jerusalem saying, “The Lord hath covered me with ashes,” Lam_3:16. Sitting on ashes, or lying down among ashes, was a token of extreme grief. We find it adopted by Job_2:8; by many Jews when in great fear, Est_4:3; and by the king of Nineveh, Jon_3:6. He arose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. This token of affliction is illustrated by Homer's description of old Laertes. grieving for the absence of his son, “Sleeping in the apartment where the slaves slept, in the ashes, near the fire.” Compare Jer_6:26, “Daughter of my people, wallow thyself in ashes.” There was a sort of ley and lustral water, made with the ashes of the heifer sacrificed on the great, day of expiation; these ashes, were distributed to the people, and used in purifications, by sprinkling, to such as had touched a dead body, or had been present at funerals,
Num_19:17.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.


ash?iz: Among the ancient Hebrews and other Orientals, to sprinkle with or sit in ashes was a mark or token of grief, humiliation, or penitence. Ashes on the head was one of the ordinary signs of mourning for the dead, as when ?Tamar put ashes on her head ... and went on crying? (2Sa_13:19 the King James Version), and of national humiliation, as when the children of Israel were assembled under Nehemiah ?with fasting, and with sackcloth, and earth (ashes) upon them? (Neh_9:1), and when the people of Nineveh repented in sackcloth and ashes at the preaching of Jonah (Jon_3:5, Jon_3:6; compare 1 Macc 3:47). The afflicted or penitent often sat in ashes (compare Job_2:8; Job_42:6 : ?I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes?), or even wallowed in ashes, as Jeremiah exhorted sinning Israel to do: ?O daughter of my people ... wallow thyself in ashes? (Jer_6:26), or as Ezekiel in his lamentation for Tyre pictures her mariners as doing, crying bitterly and 'casting up dust upon their heads' and 'wallowing themselves in the ashes' (in their weeping for her whose head was lifted up and become corrupted because of her beauty), ?in bitterness of soul with bitter mourning? (Eze_27:30, Eze_27:31).
However, these and various other modes of expressing grief, repentance, and humiliation among the Hebrews, such as rending the garments, tearing the hair and the like, were not of Divine appointment, but were simply the natural outbursts of the impassioned oriental temperament, and are still customary among eastern peoples.
Figurative: The term ?ashes? is often used to signify worthlessness, insignificance or evanescence (Gen_18:27; Job_30:19). ?Proverbs of ashes,? for instance, in Job_13:12, is Job's equivalent, says one writer, for our modern ?rot.? For the ritual use of the ashes of the Red Heifer by the priests, see RED HEIFER.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.


Ashes, in the symbolical language of Scripture, denote human frailty (Gen_18:27), and deep humiliation (Est_4:1; Jon_3:6; Mat_11:21; Luk_10:13; Job_42:6; Dan_9:3). To sit in ashes was a token of grief and mourning (Job_2:8; Lam_3:16; Eze_27:30), as was also strewing them upon the head (2Sa_13:19; Isa_61:3) [MOURNING]. 'Feeding on ashes,' in Psa_102:9, appears to express grief, as of one with whose food the ashes with which he is covered mingle. But in Isa_44:20, 'feeding on ashes,' which afford no nourishment, is judged to denote ineffectual means, labor to no purpose. Compare Hos_12:1.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.


Gen_18:27 (a) By the use of this word Abraham is expressing to GOD his own utter worthlessness and lowliness as though he were not even worth any consideration from GOD.

2Sa_13:19 (b) Ashes on the head was typical of deep shame and mental anguish as well as repentance and sorrow.

Job_2:8 (c) The disease which afflicted Job was probably the one which we know as elephantiasis. Potash is the remedy for that disease. Job sat in the ash pile so that the potash would continually cover his limbs, and thereby he would recover.

Job_13:12 (b) These ashes represent references made by Job's comforters to the glory which he once had, but now had lost. They kept reminding him of his former position of power and wealth, which had now become a pile of ashes.

Job_42:6 (a) Job not only sat in actual ashes, but those mentioned in this passage represent also his feeling of great humility and shame. He seemed to realize his utter worthlessness before GOD. All of this sad experience and loss which he suffered he calls "ashes." (See also Jer_1:1; Lam_3:16; Eze_28:18; Dan_9:3).

Isa_44:20 (b) This refers to those who had great plenty at one time but afterwards lost their wealth. They feed on their losses, they meditate on these sorrows, they talk about the tragedies in their lives, they live on the "ashes" that are left after the destruction of their former glory and wealth. Many people talk constantly of what they once were, or what they once had.

Isa_61:3 (b) The ashes in this passage represent the wreck of former beauty and the tragic end of former loveliness. There are those who at one time were sweet and delightful in their lives, but through calamity have been made bitter and sorrowful. When these turn back to the Lord, He restores His joy to their hearts, and His beauty to their lives.

Mal_4:3 (b) This word is used to describe the utter and complete defeat of everything in this world that is of the Devil. The Lord will destroy the works of the Devil and will cause His people to triumph in CHRIST.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.


Ashes
(properly אֵפֶר, e'pher, from its whiteness, σποδός; twice עָפָר, aphar', Num_19:17; 2Ki_23:4, elsewhere "dust;" also דֶּשֶׁן, de'shen, lit. fatness, i.e. the fat ashes from the victims of the altar, Lev_1:16; Lev_4:12; Lev_6:10-11; 1Ki_13:3; 1Ki_13:5; or of corpses burnt, Jer_31:40, ashes being used as a manure for land, Plin. 17:9. In 1Ki_20:38; 1Ki_20:41, אֲפֶר, apher', incorrectly rendered "ashes," signifies a covering for the head or turban, Sept. τελαμών, and so the Chaldee and Abulwalid represent it by this latter word, which in Syriac means a priestly tiara; New Test. σποδός). SEE ASH-CAKE.
In general, respecting the Biblical mention of ashes (דֶּשֶׁן, de'shen; אֵפֶר, epher), the following things deserve notice:
(1.) As the ashes of the sacrifices consumed upon the altar of burnt- offerings accumulated continually (Lev_6:3 sq.), they were from time to time removed so as to cleanse (דִּשֵּׁן) the altar. For this purpose there were in the sanctuary shovels (יָעִים) and ash-pots (סִירוֹת) of brass (Exo_27:3; Exodus 33). The performance of this office (by the priests) is not prescribed in the law; but, according to the Mishna (Tamid, i and ii), the scouring of the altar was as. signed by lot to a priest, who, after the top of the altar had been cleared of coals, etc., swept the ashes together into a heap (תִּפּוּחִ, apple, from its shape), and (according to the rabbins) took the greatest part of it away (for some of the ashes must always be allowed to remain), in order that they might be carried out of the city to a spot undisturbed by the wind. Only on high festivals the ashes were suffered to lie upon the altar as an ornament (Mishna, Tamid, ii, 2). Also upon the altar of incense ashes gradually accumulated; and the removal of these was likewise apportioned among the priests by lot. The priest to whom this function fell gathered them in a basket, and then, after another priest had used a part in cleansing the candlestick, carried out and poured the contents on the floor of the porch (Mishna, Tamid, iii, 9; 6:1; i, 4). SEE ALTAR.
(2.) On the expiatory ashes of the red heifer (אֵפֶר, Numbers 19), SEE PURIFICATION.
(3.) In deep affliction persons were accustomed, as an act suitable to the violence of internal emotions, to scatter dust or ashes (אֵפֶר) on their heads or in their hair, and to sit, or lie, or even roll in ashes, whence ashes became the symbol of penitential mourning (Job_42:6; Mat_11:21). SEE GRIEF. The Mishna (Taamith, ii, 1) mentions a custom of covering the ark that contained the law with ashes on fast-days, and the rabbins even allude to a ceremonial sprinkling of persons with ashes on the same occasions (see Bartenora, on Taamith ii). (See generally Reinhard, De sacco et cinere, Vitemb. 1698; Plade, De cineris usu lugentibus, Hafn. 1713; Schmid, De cinerum in sacris usu, Lips. 1722; Carpzov, Cinerum ap. Heb. usus, Rost. 1739; Quanat, De cinere in sacris Hebr. Regiom. 1713; Goetze, De cinerum in sacris usu, Lips. 1722.)
(4.) The ancient Persians had a punishment which consisted in executing certain criminals by stifling them in ashes (Valerius Maximus, 9:2). Thus the wicked Menelaus was despatched, who caused the troubles which had disquieted Judaea (2Ma_13:5-6), being thrown headlong into a tower fifty cubits deep, which was filled with ashes to a certain height. The action of the criminal to disengage himself plunged him still deeper in the whirling ashes; and this agitation was increased by a wheel, which kept them in continual movement till he was entirely choked. SEE EXECUTION.
Ashes were a symbol of human frailty (Gen_18:27); of deep humiliation (Est_4:1; Jon_3:6; Mat_11:21; Luk_10:13; Job_42:6; Jer_6:26; Dan_9:3); a ceremonial mode of purification (Heb_9:13; Num_19:17); they are likened to hoar-frost (Psa_147:16). In Eze_27:30, we find the mourning Tyrians described as wallowing in ashes; and we. may remark that the Greeks had the like custom of strewing themselves with ashes in mourning (Homer, Iliad, 18:22; Odyss. 24:315; comp. Virgil, En. 10:844, and Ovid's Metam. 8:528). Job_2:8, "And he sat down among the ashes." So Ulysses in Odyssey, 7:153 (see also Iliad, 18:26). Psa_102:9, "I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping," i.e. I have eaten the bread of humiliation, and drunk the water of affliction; ashes being the emblem of the one, and tears the consequence of the other (see Home, in loc.). So Isa_61:3, "A beautiful crown instead of ashes" (see Lowth's note). See 2Sa_14:2; Jdt_10:3. Isa_44:20, "He feedeth on ashes," i.e. on that which affords no nourishment; a proverbial expression for using ineffectual means, and bestowing labor to no purpose. In the same sense Hosea says (Hos_12:1), " Ephraim feedeth on wind" (see Lowth, in loc.). SEE MOURNING.



CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.





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