Job 9:30

with snow water This is according to one reading (bemê). According to another (bemô), with snow. The latter is better; snowwater is turbid and foul, ch. Job 6:16; snow is the symbol of the most perfect purity, Isaiah 1:18; Psalms 51:7. Locman's 23rd fable illustrates this Oriental idea very well: "A negro stripped himself of his clothes one day and began rubbing his body with snow. He was asked, Why do you rub yourself with snow? He answered, Perhaps I shall become white. A wise man passing by said to him, You fellow, don't fatigue yourself, your body may well make the snow black, but it will never make you white. The moral is &c."

make my hands never so clean lit. cleanse my hands with lye, or, potash.