Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
Very public and demonstrative
(Gen. 23:2; 37:29-35). Period, seven to seventy days (Gen. 1:3; 1 Sam. 31:13). Hired mourners (EccL 12:5; Matt. 9:23). Methods, weeping, tearing clothes, wearing sackcloth, sprinkling with ashes or dust, shaving head, plucking beard, fasting, laceration.
Concise Bible Dictionary:
It was the habit of the Hebrews, as it still is in the East, to make a great demonstration of their mourning. They would beat their breasts, cover their heads, fast, put dust and ashes on their heads, neglect their hair, wear dull-colored garments, rend their clothes, wear sackcloth, and so forth. For Asa and Zedekiah there was “great burning” of odors at their death, which was most probably copied from the heathen (2 Chron. 16:14; Jer. 34:5). At a death professional mourners were hired, mostly women. “Call for the mourning women.... let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters” (Jer. 9:17-18; compare 2 Sam. 14:2; Amos 5:16). Musicians also attended at deaths, who played mournful strains (Matt. 9:23). God does not desire those who are bereaved to be without feeling: the Lord wept at the grave of Lazarus, but He would have reality in all things. He had to say to His people, “Rend your heart, and not your garments” (Joel 2:13).
Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew Words:
Transliteration:
qdoranniyth
Meaning:
adverb from 6937; blackish ones (i.e. in sackcloth); used adverbially, in mourning weeds