Ver. 6. And Joshua rent his clothes— All the outward marks of sorrow exhibited by Joshua and the elders on this occasion are well known; they were customary, and have been so in much later times. The history of the Patriarchs supplies frequent instances of the custom of rending the clothes on the receipt of bad news. At this day, it is usual among the Jews, in the feast of expiations, to cast themselves on the ground before the chest which contains the book of the law; and, in memory of what Joshua did on the present occasion, the reader of the synagogue still prostrates himself every year on the same day before this same chest. See Buxtorf. Syntag. Jude 1:25; Jude 1:25. With respect to the custom of putting dust upon the head, we know that it was one of the greatest signs of affliction amongst the Jews, in which the Gentiles imitated them, as might be easily shewn in the history of the Ninevites, and divers passages taken from prophane antiquity; among others, from Virgil, where king Latinus, using the same marks of mourning with Joshua, appears tearing his clothes, and covering his head with dust. See AEneid. 12: ver. 609, &c.
Related Commentaries of Joshua 7:6
Joshua 7:6
6 And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the LORD until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads.