DUST. The Hebrews when they mourn put Dust or ashes upon their heads. Joshua vii. 6.Miserunt pulverim super capita sua. In the Acts, some of the Jews in the height of Acts xxii. 23.their rage threw Dust into the air, as it were to shew that they would reduce to powder the Apostle St. Paul, whom they had taken in the Temple. In their afflictions they sat down in the Dust, and threw themselves with their faces upon the ground. He putteth his mouth in the Dust, if so be there Lam. iii. 29.might be hope. Isai. xlvii. 1. Genes. iii. 19. Job vii. 21.And elsewhere, Come down, and sit in the Dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon. The Dust denotes likewise the grave and death. Dust thou art, and to Dust thou shalt return; and Job, I will sleep in the Dust; and the Psalmist, Thou hast brought me Psalm. xxii. 15. Gen. xiii. 16.into the Dust of death.
The Dust signifies likewise multitude; I will make thy seed as the Dust of the earth. And Balaam, upon sight of the Israelitish camp, Who can count the Dust of Jacob? This infinite multitude of the Israelites, who are as numerous as the Dust? And the Ps. lxxviii. 27.Psalmist, He rained flesh also upon them as Dust: a great multitude of Quails, as if they were Dust.
1 Sam. ii. 8.God raiseth up the poor out of the Dust, to place him upon the throne; I exalted thee out of the Dust, and made thee Prince 1 Kings xvi. 2.over my people Israel, says a Prophet to King Baasha. And in a contrary sense, he reduces those to Dust, who rise up against him; those who presume upon their own strength, those who abuse their power. He casts them like Dust before the wind; he reduces them like the Dust of the floor, upon which corn is threshed, &c.
Our Saviour commands his disciples to shake the Dust off their feet against those Matth. x. 14. Mark vi. 11. Luke ix. 5.who would not hearken to them, nor receive them, to shew hereby, that they desire to have no commerce with them; that they abhor every thing belonging to them; that they give them up to their misery and hardness.