Job 2:8

And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal . "The surface of the integuments," says Dr. Quain, "is often much inflamed, and sometimes discharges a serous ichor, or chyle-like fluid, according to the extent to which the lymphatics are engaged in the particular ease". This "serous or lymph-like fluid" is occasionally "acrid and offensive." Job seems to have used his potsherd to scrape it away . And he sat down among the ashes. Not as a curative process, or even as an alleviation of his pains, but simply as was the custom of mourners (comp. Isaiah 47:3 ; Isaiah 58:5 ; Jeremiah 6:26 ; Ezekiel 27:30 ; Jonah 3:6 ). The LXX . renders, "on the dung-heap;" but this meaning, if a possible one, is highly improbable.