God had intended life on his earth to be a paradise of enjoying his presence and thus of prosperity. Because of sin mankind was exiled into a world of thorns and thistles, of sweat and tears, ending in death (Genesis 3:17–19)—all expressions of God’s penalty on sin (Genesis 2:17). With the pouring of these ashes on the earth, people are made to experience in deep and painful fashion what it means to be offside with God their Maker. Job’s sores reduced him to scratching himself with a shard of pottery (Job 2:8); in fact, his sores were so harmful and painful that he could not function (Job 30:16–18, Job 30:30). As God describes a similar skin plague in Deuteronomy 28:27, he follows that description with “confusion of mind” in Deuteronomy 28:28–29. The point of the adjectives “harmful and painful” is to underline the paralysis, the inability to function, that plague of sores brings about.
2 So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.