037. Sackcloth

Sackcloth (Revelation 6:12) "And the sun became black as sackcloth of hair."

Sackcloth is a very heavy, coarse, dark colored cloth of goat’s hair. It is worn as a sign of mourning, next to the skin. Esther 4:1 says that "Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes ... and cried with a bitter cry."

"Rend your clothes, and gird you with sackcloth, and mourn" (2 Samuel 3:31).

Conversely, the putting off of sackcloth was, and is, a symbol of joy, of thanksgiving for deliverance from an intolerable position or condition; it celebrated a changing of affliction by one’s enemies to the casting off of the yoke of bondage (Psalms 30:11) .