Sackcloth

Sackcloth was a coarse, rough fabric woven from black goat hair, used in the ancient Near East both for making sacks and grain bags and as a garment of mourning, penitence, and lamentation. The practice of wearing sackcloth as a sign of grief is attested from the earliest biblical narrative: Jacob put on sackcloth when he believed Joseph was dead (Gen. 37:34), and David commanded all the people to wear sackcloth to mourn for Abner (2 Sam. 3:31). It was worn directly against the skin, sometimes fastened around the waist as a loincloth, and accompanied by other mourning practices such as placing ashes on the head, fasting, and wailing. It served as a visible public expression of internal grief or repentance: the Ninevites put on sackcloth at Jonah's preaching (Jonah 3:5–8), and Jesus cited the failure of Chorazin and Bethsaida to repent in sackcloth and ashes (Matt. 11:21). In prophetic and apocalyptic texts, sackcloth clothes the sky and the sun as a sign of cosmic mourning (Isa. 50:3; Rev. 6:12).