Clay, dung and street mud

Meaning

Clay and dung occur in the verse praising the diligent, God-fearing worker, whose favourable relation to God is pictured as enabling wealth from the lowliest things. Later Koth appears in a different comparison: worldly goods seem like mud in the street beside heavenly goods, and silver like mud beside wisdom. The English accordingly uses “dung” in the first setting and “mud” in the second. These are contextual renderings, not a licence to identify every lowly material in the book as one ingredient. The first image values faithful labour; the second relativises the very wealth the art is said to provide.