Kejadian 37:34

37:34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, ¹  and mourned for his son many days.

Ayub 16:15

16:15 I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, ² 

and buried ³  my horn ⁴  in the dust;

Yesaya 20:2

20:2 At that time the Lord announced through ⁵  Isaiah son of Amoz: “Go, remove the sackcloth from your waist and take your sandals off your feet.” He did as instructed and walked around in undergarments ⁶  and barefoot.

Yeremia 4:8

4:8 So put on sackcloth!

Mourn and wail, saying,

‘The fierce anger of the Lord

has not turned away from us!’” ⁷ 

Ratapan 2:10

י (Yod)

2:10 The elders of Daughter Zion

sit ⁸  on the ground in silence. ⁹ 

They have thrown dirt on their heads;

They have dressed in sackcloth. ¹⁰ 

Jerusalem’s young women ¹¹  stare down at the ground. ¹² 

Yehezkiel 27:30-31

27:30 They will lament loudly ¹³  over you and cry bitterly.

They will throw dust on their heads and roll in the ashes; ¹⁴ 

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. ¹⁵ 

Yunus 3:5-8

3:5 The people ¹⁶  of Nineveh believed in God, ¹⁷  and they declared a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. ¹⁸  3:6 When the news ¹⁹  reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat on ashes. 3:7 He issued a proclamation and said, ²⁰  “In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, cattle or sheep, is to taste anything; they must not eat and they must not drink water. 3:8 Every person and animal must put on sackcloth and must cry earnestly ²¹  to God, and everyone ²²  must turn from their ²³  evil way of living ²⁴  and from the violence that they do. ²⁵ 

[37:34]  ¹ tn Heb “and put sackcloth on his loins.”

[16:15]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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).

[20:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “spoke by the hand of.”

[20:2]  ⁶ tn The word used here (עָרוֹם, ’arom) sometimes means “naked,” but here it appears to mean simply “lightly dressed,” i.e., stripped to one’s undergarments. See HALOT 883 s.v. עָרוֹם. The term also occurs in vv. 3, 4.

[4:8]  ⁷ 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.

[2:10]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they have girded themselves with sackcloth.”

[2:10]  sn Along with putting dirt on one’s head, wearing sackcloth was a sign of mourning.

[2:10]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² tn Heb “have bowed down their heads to the ground.”

[27:30]  ¹³ tn Heb “make heard over you with their voice.”

[27:30]  ¹⁴ tn Note a similar expression to “roll in the ashes” in Mic 1:10.

[27:31]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and they will weep concerning you with bitterness of soul, (with) bitter mourning.”

[3:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “men.” The term is used generically here for “people” (so KJV, ASV, and many other English versions); cf. NIV “the Ninevites.”

[3:5]  ¹⁷ sn The people of Nineveh believed in God…. Verse 5 provides a summary of the response in Nineveh; the people of all ranks believed and gave evidence of contrition by fasting and wearing sackcloth (2 Sam 12:16, 19-23; 1 Kgs 21:27-29; Neh 9:1-2). Then vv. 6-9 provide specific details, focusing on the king’s reaction. The Ninevites’ response parallels the response of the pagan sailors in 1:6 and 13-16.

[3:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “from the greatest of them to the least of them.”

[3:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “word” or “matter.”

[3:7]  ²⁰ tn Contrary to many modern English versions, the present translation understands the king’s proclamation to begin after the phrase “and he said” (rather than after “in Nineveh”), as do quotations in 1:14; 2:2, 4; 4:2, 8, 9. In Jonah where the quotation does not begin immediately after “said” (אָמַר, ’amar), it is only the speaker or addressee or both that come between “said” and the start of the quotation (1:6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12; 4:4, 9, 10; cf. 1:1; 3:1).

[3:8]  ²¹ tn Heb “with strength”; KJV, NRSV “mightily”; NAB, NCV “loudly”; NIV “urgently.”

[3:8]  ²² tn Heb “let them turn, a man from his evil way.” The alternation between the plural verb וְיָשֻׁבוּ (vÿyashuvu, “and let them turn”) and the singular noun אִישׁ (’ish, “a man, each one”) and the singular suffix on מִדַּרְכּוֹ (middarko, “from his way”) emphasizes that each and every person in the collective unity is called to repent.

[3:8]  ²³ tn Heb “his.” See the preceding note on “one.”

[3:8]  ²⁴ tn Heb “evil way.” For other examples of “way” as “way of living,” see Judg 2:17; Ps 107:17-22; Prov 4:25-27; 5:21.

[3:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “that is in their hands.” By speaking of the harm they did as “in their hands,” the king recognized the Ninevites’ personal awareness and immediate responsibility. The term “hands” is either a synecdoche of instrument (e.g., “Is not the hand of Joab in all this?” 2 Sam 14:19) or a synecdoche of part for the whole. The king's descriptive figure of speech reinforces their guilt.