Isaiah 15:3

15:3 In their streets they wear sackcloth;

on their roofs and in their town squares

all of them wail,

they fall down weeping.

Isaiah 32:9-11

The Lord Will Give True Security

32:9 You complacent ¹  women,

get up and listen to me!

You carefree ²  daughters,

pay attention to what I say!

32:10 In a year’s time ³ 

you carefree ones will shake with fear,

for the grape ⁴  harvest will fail,

and the fruit harvest will not arrive.

32:11 Tremble, you complacent ones!

Shake with fear, you carefree ones!

Strip off your clothes and expose yourselves –

put sackcloth on your waist! ⁵ 

Job 16:15

16:15 I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, ⁶ 

and buried ⁷  my horn ⁸  in the dust;

Jeremiah 4:8

4:8 So put on sackcloth!

Mourn and wail, saying,

‘The fierce anger of the Lord

has not turned away from us!’” ⁹ 

Jeremiah 6:26

6:26 So I said, ¹⁰  “Oh, my dear people, ¹¹  put on sackcloth

and roll in ashes.

Mourn with painful sobs

as though you had lost your only child.

For any moment now ¹²  that destructive army ¹³ 

will come against us.”

Jeremiah 48:37

48:37 For all of them will shave their heads in mourning.

They will all cut off their beards to show their sorrow.

They will all make gashes in their hands.

They will all put on sackcloth. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 49:3

49:3 Wail, you people in Heshbon, because Ai in Ammon is destroyed.

Cry out in anguish, you people in the villages surrounding ¹⁵  Rabbah.

Put on sackcloth and cry out in mourning.

Run about covered with gashes. ¹⁶ 

For your god Milcom will go into exile

along with his priests and officials. ¹⁷ 

Lamentations 2:10

י (Yod)

2:10 The elders of Daughter Zion

sit ¹⁸  on the ground in silence. ¹⁹ 

They have thrown dirt on their heads;

They have dressed in sackcloth. ²⁰ 

Jerusalem’s young women ²¹  stare down at the ground. ²² 

Ezekiel 27:31

27:31 they will tear out their hair because of you and put on sackcloth,

and they will weep bitterly over you with intense mourning. ²³ 

Joel 1:8

A Call to Lament

1:8 Wail ²⁴  like a young virgin ²⁵  clothed in sackcloth,

lamenting the death of ²⁶  her husband-to-be. ²⁷ 

Amos 8:10

8:10 I will turn your festivals into funerals, ²⁸ 

and all your songs into funeral dirges.

I will make everyone wear funeral clothes ²⁹ 

and cause every head to be shaved bald. ³⁰ 

I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; ³¹ 

when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day. ³² 

Revelation 11:3

11:3 And I will grant my two witnesses authority ³³  to prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth.

[32:9]  ¹ tn Or “self-assured”; NASB, NRSV “who are at ease.”

[32:9]  ² tn Or “self-confident”; NAB “overconfident.”

[32:10]  ³ tn Heb “days upon a year.”

[32:10]  ⁴ tn Or perhaps, “olive.” See 24:13.

[32:11]  ⁵ tn The imperatival forms in v. 11 are problematic. The first (חִרְדוּ, khirdu, “tremble”) is masculine plural in form, though spoken to a feminine plural addressee (שַׁאֲנַנּוֹת, sha’anannot, “complacent ones”). The four imperatival forms that follow (רְגָזָה, rÿgazah, “shake with fear”; פְּשֹׁטָה, pÿshotah, “strip off your clothes”; עֹרָה, ’orah, “expose yourselves”; and חֲגוֹרָה, khagorah, “put on”) all appear to be lengthened (so-called “emphatic”) masculine singular forms, even though they too appear to be spoken to a feminine plural addressee. GKC 131-32 §48.i suggests emending חִרְדוּ (khirdu) to חֲרָדָה (kharadah) and understanding all five imperatives as feminine plural “aramaized” forms.

[16:15]  ⁶ sn The language is hyperbolic; Job is saying that the sackcloth he has put on in his lamentable state is now stuck to his skin as if he had stitched it into the skin. It is now a habitual garment that he never takes off.

[16:15]  ⁷ tn The Poel עֹלַלְתִּי (’olalti) from עָלַל (’alal, “to enter”) has here the meaning of “to thrust in.” The activity is the opposite of “raising high the horn,” a picture of dignity and victory.

[16:15]  ⁸ tn There is no English term that captures exactly what “horn” is meant to do. Drawn from the animal world, the image was meant to convey strength and pride and victory. Some modern commentators have made other proposals for the line. Svi Rin suggested from Ugaritic that the verb be translated “lower” or “dip” (“Ugaritic – Old Testament Affinities,” BZ 7 [1963]: 22-33).

[4:8]  ⁹ tn Or “wail because the fierce anger of the Lord has not turned away from us.” The translation does not need to assume a shift in speaker as the alternate reading does.

[6:26]  ¹⁰ tn These words are not in the text but are implicit from the context.

[6:26]  ¹¹ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the translator’s note there.

[6:26]  ¹² tn Heb “suddenly.”

[6:26]  ¹³ tn Heb “the destroyer.”

[48:37]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “upon every loin [there is] sackcloth.” The word “all” is restored here before “loin” with a number of Hebrew mss and a number of versions. The words “in mourning” and “to show their sorrow” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to give the average reader some idea of the significance of these acts.

[49:3]  ¹⁵ tn Or “you women of Rabbah”; Heb “daughters of Rabbah.” It is difficult to tell whether the word “daughters” is used here in the same sense that it has in v. 2 (see the translator’s note there) or in the literal sense of “daughters.” The former has been preferred because the cities themselves (e.g., Heshbon) are called to wail in the earlier part of the verse and the term “daughters” has been used in the previous verse of the surrounding villages.

[49:3]  ¹⁶ tc Or “Run back and forth inside the walls of your towns.” Or “slash yourselves with gashes.” The meaning of this line is uncertain. The Hebrew text reads “run back and forth among the walls.” The word “run back and forth” is generally taken as a Hitpolel of a verb that means to “go about” in the Qal and to “go back and forth” in the Polel (cf. BDB 1002 s.v. I שׁוּט). The noun that follows in the Hebrew means “wall, hedge” and is quite commonly modified by the noun צֹאן (tso’n, “sheep”) referring to sheepfolds (cf., e.g., Num 32:36; 1 Sam 24:3). But the phrase “run back and forth among the sheepfolds” yields little meaning here. In Ps 89:40 (89:41 HT) the word “wall” is used in parallelism with fortified cities and refers to the walls of the city. That is the sense that is assumed in one of the alternate translations with the words “of your towns” being supplied in the translation for clarification. However, that figure is a little odd in a context which speaks of mourning rites. Hence, some emend the word “walls” (גְּדֵרוֹת, gÿderot) to “gashes” (גְּדֻדוֹת, gÿdudot), a word that has occurred in a similar context in Jer 48:37. That would involve only the common confusion of ר and ד. That is the reading adopted here and fits the context nicely. NRSV appears to go one step further and read the verb as a Hitpolel from a root that is otherwise used only as a noun to mean “whip” or “scourge.” NRSV reads “slash yourselves with whips” which also makes excellent sense in the context but is not supported by any parallel use of the verb.

[49:3]  ¹⁷ sn Compare Jer 48:7 and the study note there.

[2:10]  ¹⁸ tc Consonantal ישׁבו (yshvy) is vocalized by the MT as יֵשְׁבוּ (yeshvu), Qal imperfect 3rd person masculine plural from יָשַׁב (yashav, “to sit”): “they sit on the ground.” However, the ancient versions (Aramaic Targum, Greek Septuagint, Syriac Peshitta, Latin Vulgate) reflect an alternate vocalization tradition of יָשְׁבוּ (yashvu), Qal imperfect 3rd person masculine plural from שׁוּב (shuv, “to return”): “they return to the ground (= the grave).” The parallelism with the following line favors the MT.

[2:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “they sit on the ground, they are silent.” Based on meter, the two verbs יִדְּמוּ…יֵשְׁבוּ (yeshvu…yidÿmu, “they sit…they are silent”) are in the same half of the line. Joined without a ו (vav) conjunction they form a verbal hendiadys. The first functions in its full verbal sense while the second functions adverbially: “they sit in silence.” The verb יִדְּמוּ (yidÿmu) may mean to be silent or to wail.

[2:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb “they have girded themselves with sackcloth.”

[2:10]  ²¹ tn Heb “the virgins of Jerusalem.” The term “virgins” is a metonymy of association, standing for single young women who are not yet married. These single women are in grief because their potential suitors have been killed. The elders, old men, and young women function together as a merism for all of the survivors (F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp, Lamentations [IBC], 92).

[2:10]  ²² tn Heb “have bowed down their heads to the ground.”

[27:31]  ²³ tn Heb “and they will weep concerning you with bitterness of soul, (with) bitter mourning.”

[1:8]  ²⁴ sn The verb is feminine singular, raising a question concerning its intended antecedent. A plural verb would be expected here, the idea being that all the inhabitants of the land should grieve. Perhaps Joel is thinking specifically of the city of Jerusalem, albeit in a representative sense. The choice of the feminine singular verb form has probably been influenced to some extent by the allusion to the young widow in the simile of v. 8.

[1:8]  ²⁵ tn Or “a young woman” (TEV, CEV). See the note on the phrase “husband-to-be” in the next line.

[1:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “over the death of.” The term “lamenting” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for smoothness.

[1:8]  ²⁷ sn Heb “the husband of her youth.” The woman described here may already be married, so the reference is to the death of a husband rather than a fiancé (a husband-to-be). Either way, the simile describes a painful and unexpected loss to which the national tragedy Joel is describing may be compared.

[8:10]  ²⁸ tn Heb “mourning.”

[8:10]  ²⁹ tn Heb “I will place sackcloth on all waists.”

[8:10]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and make every head bald.” This could be understood in a variety of ways, while the ritual act of mourning typically involved shaving the head (although occasionally the hair could be torn out as a sign of mourning).

[8:10]  ³¹ tn Heb “I will make it like the mourning for an only son.”

[8:10]  ³² tn Heb “and its end will be like a bitter day.” The Hebrew preposition כְּ (kaf) sometimes carries the force of “in every respect,” indicating identity rather than mere comparison.

[11:3]  ³³ tn The word “authority” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. “Power” would be another alternative that could be supplied here.