Genesis 37:34. Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.
Rending the clothes as a token of grief is a very ancient custom, and is often referred to in the Bible. See Joshua 7:6; 1 Samuel 4:12; 2 Samuel 1:11; 3:31; 13:31; 2 Kings 2:12; 18:37; 19:1; Ezra 9:3; Job 1:20. A Jewish writer, quoted by Brinier, says that this ceremony was performed in the following mariner: “They take a knife, and holding the blade downward, do give the upper garment a cut on the right side, and then rend it a hand’s breadth. This is done for the five following relations, brother, sister, son, daughter, or wife; but for father or mother the rent is on the left side, and in all the garments” (Oriental Customs, No. 65).
Sackcloth is also frequently mentioned. It was generally made of the hair of goats or of camels, and was coarse and black. It was used for straining liquids, for sacks, and for mourning garments. When used for mourning it was sometimes worn next to the skin, which it must have chafed by its harshness, and at other times it was hung like a sack over the outer garments, or instead of them. A girdle of similar material confined its loose folds. Ahab, on one occasion, appears to have worn sackcloth next to his skin all night. See 1 Kings 21:27. In Revelation 6:12, in the darkness accompanying an earthquake, the sun is said to have become as “black as sackcloth of hair.”