2 Samuel 15:32. Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his coat rent, and earth upon his head.
His rent coat signified mourning, (see note on Genesis 37:34, #70) as did also the earth on his head. In the British Museum is a tombstone from Abydos, on which is a representation of a funeral procession, the mourners in which show their grief by throwing dust on their heads. There was an ancient tradition among the Egyptians that, in the infancy of their history as a people, their god Nom had taught their fathers that they were but clay or dust. The practice of putting dust on their heads is supposed to have been originally designed to be symbolical of their origin from dust, and to convey the idea of their humility in view of that fact. We find frequent scriptural reference to the custom. When the Israelites were defeated at Ai, Joshua and the elders “put dust upon their heads” (Josh. 7:6). The Benjamite who brought to Eli the news of the death of his sons came to Shiloh “with earth upon his head” (1 Sam. 4:12). The young Amalekite who brought to David the tidings of Saul’s death had “earth upon his head” (2 Sam. 1:2). Tamar, dishonored, “put ashes on her head” (2 Sam. 13:19). In the great fast which was held in Nehemiah’s time in Jerusalem, the children of Israel had “earth upon them” (Neh. 9:1). When Job’s three friends mourned with him in his great troubles, they “sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven” (Job 2:12). This shows the great antiquity of the practice. Jeremiah, in lamenting over the desolations of Zion, says that the elders “have cast up dust upon their heads” (Lam. 2:10). Ezekiel, in predicting the destruction of Tyrian commerce, represents the sailors as casting up “dust upon their heads” (Ezek. 27:30). See also Revelation 18:19.