Luke 10:13

Mighty works. See on Matthew 11:20.

Sackcloth [σ α κ κ ω]. From the Hebrew sak : what is knotted together; net - shaped; coarsely woven. It was made of goats ' or camels ' hair (Revelation 6:12), and was a material similar to that upon which Paul wrought in tent - making. The same word in Hebrew is used to describe a grain - sack, and this coarse material of which it is made (Genesis 42:25; Joshua 9:4). So the Greek sagh means a pack or baggage. The same root, according to some etymologists, appears in saghnh, a drag - net (see Matthew 13:47), and sagov, Latin sagum, a coarse, soldier's cloak. It was employed for the rough garments for mourners (Esther 4:1; 1 Kings 21:27), in which latter passage the sackcloth is put next the flesh in token of extreme sorrow. Compare 2 Kings 6:30; Job 16:15.

Ashes [σ π ο δ ω]. As a sign of mourning. Defiling one's self with dead things, as ashes or dirt, as a sign of sorrow, was common among the Orientals and Greeks. Thus Homer describes Achilles on hearing of the death of Patroclus :

"Grasping in both hands The ashes of the hearth, he showered them o'er His head, and soiled with them his noble face."

Iliad, 18 28.

And Priam, mourning for Hector :

"In the midst the aged man Sat with a cloak wrapped round him, and much dust Strewn on his head and neck, which, when he rolled Upon the earth, he gathered with his hands."

Iliad, 24 162 - 5.

See 1 Samuel 4:12; 2 Samuel 1:2; 2 Samuel 13:19; Job 2:12; Ezekiel 17:30; Revelation 18:19. In Judith 4 14, 15, in the mourning over the ravages of the Assyrians, the priests minister at the altar, girded with sackcloth, and with ashes on their mitres. Sir Gardner Wilkinson, describing a funeral at Thebes, says : "Men, women, and children, with the body exposed above the waist, throw dust on their heads, or cover their faces with mud" (" Modern Egypt and Thebes "). Stifling with ashes was a Persian mode of punishment. Compare Apocrypha, 2 Macc. 13 5 - 7. Herodotus relates that Nitocris, an Egyptian queen, after having drowned the murderers of her brother, threw herself into an apartment full of ashes, in order to escape the vengeance of their friends.