A dung heap, refuse pile, or ash heap — the lowest, most degrading place in society. Used powerfully in Psalms and Hannah's song to describe the depths from which God lifts the needy.
The ash heap was the gathering place of the utterly destitute — those cast off by society with nowhere left to go. Hannah's declaration becomes stunning: God 'raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap' (1 Samuel 2:8). This reversal theology runs through all of Scripture, culminating in the Magnificat (Luke 1:52) and the Beatitudes. The ash heap is where God does His most dramatic work.