And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:
Parallel translations
- WEB In that day, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, called to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth:
- BSB On that day the Lord GOD of Hosts called for weeping and wailing, for shaven heads and the wearing of sackcloth.
- NKJV And in that day the Lord God of hosts Called for weeping and for mourning, For baldness and for girding with sackcloth.
- NASB ¶Therefore on that day the Lord God of armies called you to weeping, to wailing, To shaving the head, and to wearing sackcloth.
- NLT At that time the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, called you to weep and mourn. He told you to shave your heads in sorrow for your sins and to wear clothes of burlap to show your remorse.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The Lord called the people to weeping, mourning, and repentance. It matters because it reveals what God truly wanted: humble sorrow for sin.
Overview
In that day of crisis the LORD of Armies summoned his people to genuine repentance, marked by weeping, mourning, and sackcloth. This was the fitting response to judgment, a turning of the heart back to God. The call shows that God's desire was not their destruction but their contrition. It sets up the tragic contrast with how the people actually responded.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Joel 1:13Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.
- Mic 1:16Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee.
- Joel 2:17Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?
- Eccl 3:4A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
- Job 1:20Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,
- Amos 8:10And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.
- Jas 5:1Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
- Neh 9:9And didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red sea;
- Isa 15:2He is gone up to Bajith, and to Dibon, the high places, to weep: Moab shall howl over Nebo, and over Medeba: on all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard cut off.
- Eccl 3:11He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
- 2 Chr 35:25And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations.
- Ezra 9:3And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied.
- Jonah 3:6For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
- Jas 4:8–10Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
- Neh 8:9–12And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the LORD your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 22:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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