SACK. Sack-cloth. This is a pure Hebrew Word, and has spread into almost all Languages. Besides the common Signification, which is very well known, it stands also for a Suit of Mourning, which was wore at the Death of a Friend or Relation. In great Calamities, in Penance, in Trouble, they wore Sack-cloth about their Bodies. Accingimini saccis & plangite ante exequias 2 Sam. iii. 31.Abner. Gird yourselves with Sack-cloth, and mourn for Abner. Let us gird ourselves with Sack-cloth, and let us go and implore the Clemency of the King of Israel. Ahab tore 1 Kings xx. 31.his Cloaths, put on a Shirt of Hair-cloth next to his Skin, fasted, and lay upon Sack-cloth. 1 Kings xxi. 27.Dormivit in Sacco.
When Mordecai was inform’d of the Misfortune that threaten’d his Nation, he put on Sack-cloth, and cover’d his Head with Ashes. Esth. iv. 1, 2, 3. Job xvi. 16.Job says, that he has sew’d a Sack upon his Flesh.
On the contrary, in the Time of Joy, and upon the hearing of any good News, those that were clad in Sack-cloth, tore it from their Bodies, and cast it from them. Concidisti saccum meum, & circumdedisti me Psal. xxix. 12.lætitia, says the Psalmist.
The Prophets were commonly cloathed in Sack-cloth. The Lord bids Isaiah to put off the Sack-cloth that was about his Body, Isa. xx. 2. Zech. xiii. 4.and to go naked. Zechariah says, that the false Prophets should no longer prophesy in Sack-cloth, to deceive the Simple. St. John Rev. xi. 3.in the Revelations says, that the two Prophets that God should raise up at the End of the World, should prophesy a thousand, two hundred and sixty Years, cloathed in Sack-cloth. Baruch intimates, that this Habit of Sack-cloth, was that in which good People cloathed themselves when they went Baruch iv. 20.to Prayers. Exui me stola pacis, indui autem me sacco obsecrationis.