sackcloth

The Hebrew or Greek which are translated into English as “sackcloth” are rendered into Chamula Tzotzil as “sad-heart clothes.” (Source: Robert Bascom)

Pohnpeian and Chuukese translate it as “clothing-of sadness,” Eastern Highland Otomi uses “clothing that hurts,” Central Mazahua “that which is scratchy,” Tae’ and Zarma “rags” (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel), and Tangale as “torn clothes that show contrition on the body” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin). In the English translation by Goldingay (2018), “put on sackcloth” is translated as wrap on sack.

“In Turkana, a woman removes her normal everyday skin clothes and ornaments and wears rather poor skins during the time of mourning. The whole custom is known as ngiboro. It is very difficult to translate putting on sackcloth because even material like sacking is unfamiliar. The Haya, on the other hand, have a mourning cloth made out of the bark of a tree; and the use of this cloth is similar to the Jewish use of sackcloth. It was found that in both the Turkana and Ruhaya common language translations, their traditional mourning ceremonies were used.” (Source: Rachel Konyoro in The Bible Translator 1985, p. 221ff. )

Click or tap here to see a short video clip showing what a sackcloth looked like in biblical times (source: Bible Lands 2012)

See also mourning clothes and you have loosed my sackcloth.

Translation commentary on Judith 4:10

They and their wives and their children and their cattle and every resident alien and hired laborer and purchased slave: For a comment on the translation of cattle, see Tob 1.6. Resident alien refers to a foreigner residing in their country. Slaves were people who worked for their owners for no pay.

They all girded themselves with sackcloth: Sackcloth was a coarse cloth appropriate for making sacks, but it was worn on the body as a sign of mourning, repentance, or distress. Here the Greek says that the people put the sackcloth “on their loins.” Revised Standard Version reflects this with girded themselves, and New Revised Standard Version with “they all put sackcloth around their waists” (similarly New Jerusalem Bible). Wearing the sackcloth was a symbolic gesture, so it probably did not cover the whole body. New Revised Standard Version suggests this, and translators are on solid ground, textually and culturally, to picture it this way. It may seem strange to have “livestock” wearing sackcloth, but this is mentioned also in Jonah 3.8. The Greeks put garlands on sacrificial animals (Acts 14.13), and people around the world are known to attire animals, such as cattle, horses, elephants, camels, with festive ornamentation on occasions of celebration, so it is not necessarily a comic touch in either Jonah or Judith for people to put signs of sorrow on their animals. Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation seem to indicate that the livestock put the sackcloth on themselves. Contemporary English Version solves this problem with:

• Then everyone in the country wrapped sackcloth around their waists—men, women, and children, as well as foreigners and slaves and hired workers. They even put sackcloth on their livestock!

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Judith. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here.