And in that day the Lord God of hosts Called for weeping and for mourning, For baldness and for 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:
- KJV And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:
- BSB On that day the Lord GOD of Hosts called for weeping and wailing, for shaven heads and the wearing of 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 1:13Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.
- Mic 1:16Shave your heads, and cut off your hair for the children of your delight. Enlarge your baldness like the vulture; for they have gone into captivity from you!
- Joel 2:17Let the priests, the ministers of Yahweh, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, “Spare your people, Yahweh, and don’t give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘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 tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped.
- Amos 8:10I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.
- Jas 5:1Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you.
- Neh 9:9“You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cry by the Red Sea,
- Isa 15:2They have gone up to Bayith, and to Dibon, to the high places, to weep. Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba. Baldness is on all of their heads. Every beard is cut off.
- Eccl 3:11He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man can’t find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end.
- 2 Chr 35:25Jeremiah lamented for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women spoke of Josiah in their lamentations to this day; and they made them an ordinance in Israel. Behold, they are written in the lamentations.
- Ezra 9:3When I heard this thing, I tore my garment and my robe, and pulled the hair out of my head and of my beard, and sat down confounded.
- Jonah 3:6The news reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
- Jas 4:8–10Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
- Neh 8:9–12Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, “Today is holy to Yahweh your God. Don’t mourn, 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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