VI: The Prophets' Visions

Sackcloth

truth testifying under affliction and restraint

Root
Joel 1:13 · saq (H8242)
Old Testament chain
  1. Gen 37:34
  2. 2 Kgs 19:1
  3. Isa 20:2-3
  4. Jer 4:8
  5. Dan 9:3
  6. Joel 1:13
  7. Jonah 3:5-8
  8. Rev 11:3
New Testament
Rev 11:3

Sackcloth first appears when Jacob mourns Joseph (Gen 37:34). Hezekiah wears it before Assyria (2 Kgs 19:1), Daniel seeks Yahuah "with fasting, and sackcloth" (Dan 9:3), and Joel calls the priests to "lie all night in sackcloth" (Joel 1:13). Isaiah wore it as a prophetic sign and loosed it when the sign was given (Isa 20:2-3). Revelation's sackcloth is the sign of affliction and restraint: truth present under grievous conditions, speaking under pressure, not from worldly comfort. When it comes off, the time for warning is over. The teaching that the witnesses are two returning men, Enoch and Elijah, in a future tribulation misses that the garment marks testimony carried across the 1,260 years.

From The Courtroom of Heaven, pp. 158, 203–204