ashes
e.pher denotes ashes, especially those associated with mourning, humiliation, and acts of repentance.
The noun most often occurs in actions of mourning, grief, humiliation, or repentance, such as placing ashes on the head, sitting in them, or pairing them with sackcloth. Other verses use ashes as material gathered for an established procedure, as the result of consuming fire, or in comparisons describing lowliness, worthlessness, or scattered frost.
Senses in use
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Ashes in mourning and humiliation · dominant
The absolute noun appears in visible acts of grief and abasement: Tamar puts it on her head in 2 Samuel 13:19, and Mordecai puts on sackcloth and ashes while crying out in Esther 4:1. In Daniel 9:3, Job 42:6, and Jonah 3:6, the APB renders ashes alongside fasting, sackcloth, prayer, repentance, or the king's self-humbling action.
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Ashes as gathered or remaining material · occasional
In Numbers 19:9 and Numbers 19:10, the construct form occurs in clauses about gathering and keeping the ashes of the heifer, with washing and uncleanness specified for the gatherer. Ezekiel 28:18 presents ashes on the earth after fire consumes, while Job 2:8 depicts Job sitting among them.
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Ashes in lowly or comparative expressions · occasional
The noun occurs with dust when Abraham describes himself in Genesis 18:27 and when Job says he has become like dust and ashes in Job 30:19. The APB also renders a person as feeding on ashes in Isaiah 44:20, calls sayings “proverbs of ashes” in Job 13:12, and compares scattered frost with ashes in Psalm 147:16.
In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB commonly presents the noun as “ashes” in scenes of sackcloth, mourning, repentance, sitting, gathering, or being reduced by fire. In Psalm 102:10, the supplied APB verse does not visibly represent the noun, so its specific contribution cannot be isolated from that translation.