I. The text describes certain changes in the lives and experience of godly men. Sackcloth was the attire of the leper, the ascetic, the penitent, and the mourner, sometimes, too, of the prophets of God. Sackcloth represents a condition of affliction. Beautiful raiment was worn on festive and joyous occasions. Here the joy which the wearing of such attire would betoken is used to represent the raiment itself, and the raiment is employed to represent prosperity. There is in human life and experience the turning of mourning into dancing, the putting off of sackcloth and girding with gladness. They whose life has been redeemed from destruction will understand this.
II. The text points to God as the Author of these changes. (1) Mourning and sackcloth are contrary to the nature of God. (2) They are contrary to the disposition of God. (3) There is nothing in the Divine nature answering to temper in man, by which the nature and disposition of God are made to sympathise with mourning and sackcloth. (4) God has the right and the power to turn our mourning into dancing.
III. The text speaks of praise as the end and object of these changes. Praise is higher than prayer. It is Divine. There is nothing in the Divine consciousness which corresponds to our prayers; but in God's self-appreciation there is that which is in harmony with our praises. While God's creatures praise Him, they are unfallen; and in the degree that the spirit of praise is restored in them their redemption is being wrought out.
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 37.