When David took hold on his clothes,.... Not on the young man's but his own:
and rent them; on bearing of the death of Saul and Jonathan, see
Genesis 37:34; from whence the Jews l gather, that a man is bound to rend his clothes for a prince, and for the father of the sanhedrim, since Saul, they say, was the prince, and Jonathan the father of that court:
and likewise all the men that [were] with him; rent their clothes also, in imitation of him; the same custom obtained among the Gentiles on mournful occasions m.
l T. Bab. Moed. Katon, fol. 26. 1. m "-----it scissa veste Latinus". Virgil. Aeneid. 12. prope finem.