Gird thee with sackcloth— As the wearing of sackcloth girt round the body next the flesh (see 2 Kings 6:30.) is often mentioned in Scripture as usual in times of mourning and lamentation, and appears, according to our notions, a very harsh kind of discipline, it may not be amiss to take notice what kind of sackcloth is meant. Mr. Harmer cites Sir John Chardin's manuscript, to shew that the sacks used by travellers in the East for carrying their necessaries with them, were made of coarse wool, guarded with leather; and then proceeds to infer with great probability, that "if the sacks were woollen, the sackcloth, with which the Eastern people were wont to clothe themselves at particular times, means coarse woollen cloth, such as they made sacks of, and neither hair-cloth, nor rough harsh cloth of hemp, as we may have been ready to imagine; for it is the same Hebrew word שׂק sak, which signifies sack, that is here rendered sackcloth. And as the people of very remote antiquity commonly wore no linen, there was not that affectation in what they put on in times of humiliation, as we in the West may perhaps have apprehended. They only put on very coarse mean woollen garments, instead of those that were finer, but of the same general nature." Harmer's Observ. ch. 5: Obs. 4:—Sitting or lying down in ashes was another custom observed on the like occasions. See Esther 4:3.Job 2:8; Job 42:6. Isaiah 58:5.Jonah 3:6. &c. &c.
As for an only son— A proverbial expression among the Hebrews, to denote the greatest grief. See Amos 8:10. Zechariah 12:10.