Yoel 1:13
Konteks1:13 Get dressed 1 and lament, you priests!
Wail, you who minister at the altar!
Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you servants of my God,
because no one brings grain offerings or drink offerings
to the temple of your God anymore. 2
Yesaya 22:12
Konteks22:12 At that time the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, called for weeping and mourning,
for shaved heads and sackcloth. 3
Amos 8:10
Konteks8:10 I will turn your festivals into funerals, 4
and all your songs into funeral dirges.
I will make everyone wear funeral clothes 5
and cause every head to be shaved bald. 6
I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; 7
when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day. 8
[1:13] 1 tn Heb “put on.” There is no object present in the Hebrew text, but many translations assume “sackcloth” to be the understood object of the verb “put on.” Its absence in the Hebrew text of v. 13 is probably due to metrical considerations. The meter here is 3 + 3, and that has probably influenced the prophet’s choice of words.
[1:13] 2 tn Heb “for grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.”
[22:12] 3 tn Heb “for baldness and the wearing of sackcloth.” See the note at 15:2.
[8:10] 5 tn Heb “I will place sackcloth on all waists.”
[8:10] sn Mourners wore sackcloth (funeral clothes) as an outward expression of grief.
[8:10] 6 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] sn Shaving the head or tearing out one’s hair was a ritual act of mourning. See Lev 21:5; Deut 14:1; Isa 3:24; 15:2; Jer 47:5; 48:37; Ezek 7:18; 27:31; Mic 1:16.
[8:10] 7 tn Heb “I will make it like the mourning for an only son.”
[8:10] 8 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.
