Job 2:12
And when they had lifted up their eyes afar off, they knew him not, and crying out they wept, and rending their garments they sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven.
Open Job 2:12 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Cumque elevassent procul oculos suos, non cognoverunt eum, et exclamantes ploraverunt, scissisque vestibus sparserunt pulverem super caput suum in cælum.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- ἰδόντες δὲ αὐτὸν πόρρωθεν οὐκ ἐπέγνωσαν, καὶ βοήσαντες φωνῇ μεγάλῃ ἔκλαυσαν, ⸂⸆⸃ ῥήξαντες ἕκαστος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ στολήν, καὶ καταπασάμενοι γῆν.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַיִּשְׂא֨וּ אֶת עֵינֵיהֶ֤ם מֵרָחוֹק֙ וְלֹ֣א הִכִּירֻ֔הוּ וַיִּשְׂא֥וּ קוֹלָ֖ם וַיִּבְכּ֑וּ וַֽיִּקְרְעוּ֙ אִ֣ישׁ מְעִל֔וֹ וַיִּזְרְק֥וּ עָפָ֛ר עַל רָאשֵׁיהֶ֖ם הַשָּׁמָֽיְמָה
Haydock's commentary
Heaven. This denoted mourning or indignation, Josue vii. 6., and Acts xxii. 23.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom The Homilies on the Statues to the People of Antioch, Homily II
1. What shall I say, or what shall I speak of? The present season is one for tears, and not for words; for lamentation, not for discourse; for prayer, not for preaching. Such is the magnitude of the deeds daringly done; so incurable is the wound, so deep the blow, even beyond the power of all treatment, and craving assistance from above. Thus it was that Job, when he had lost all, sat himself down upon a dunghill; and his friends heard of it, and came, and seeing him, while yet afar off, they rent their garments, and sprinkled themselves with ashes, and made great lamentation. The same thing now ought all the cities around to do, to come to our city and to lament with all sympathy what has befallen us. He then sat down on his dunghill; she is now seated in the midst of a great snare. …