Dust
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(Job 2:12)—a sign of humiliation, mourning, judgment, and mortality. Job’s friends threw dust into the air over their heads when they saw his suffering; Joshua and the elders put dust on their heads after Israel’s defeat (Josh. 7:6). Shimei threw stones and flung dust while cursing David (2 Sam. 16:13), and the Jerusalem crowd threw dust into the air in rage against Paul (Acts 22:23). To shake the dust from one’s feet signified solemn testimony against those who rejected the apostolic message (Matt. 10:14; Acts 13:51), not contempt for the physical land itself.