Isaiah 50:3

Amplified Bible

"I clothe the heavens with the blackness [of storm clouds] And make sackcloth [of mourning] their clothing."

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
I dress the heavens in blackand make sackcloth their clothing.

Hebrew Names Version
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

King James Version
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

English Standard Version
I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering."

New American Standard Bible
"I clothe the heavens with blackness, And make sackcloth their covering."

New Century Version
I can make the skies dark; I can make them black like clothes of sadness."

World English Bible
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

Geneva Bible (1587)
I clothe the heauens with darkenesse, and make a sacke their couering.

Legacy Standard Bible
I clothe the heavens with blacknessAnd make sackcloth their covering."

Berean Standard Bible
I clothe the heavens in black and make sackcloth their covering.

Contemporary English Version
I make the sky turn dark like the sackcloth you wear at funerals."

Complete Jewish Bible
I dress the heavens in black to mourn and make their covering sackcloth."

Darby Translation
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

Easy-to-Read Version
I can make the skies dark. I can cover the skies in darkness as black as sackcloth."

George Lamsa Translation
I clothe the heavens with darkness and make sackcloth their covering.

Good News Translation
I can make the sky turn dark, as if it were in mourning for the dead."

Lexham English Bible
I clothe the heavens with darkness, and I make their covering sackcloth."

Literal Translation
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and sackcloth makes their covering.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
As for heauen, I clooth it with darcknesse, and put a sack vpon it.

American Standard Version
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

Bible in Basic English
By me the heavens are clothed with black, and I make haircloth their robe.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

King James Version (1611)
I clothe the heauens with blackenesse, and I make sackcloth their couering.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
As for heauen I clothe it with darknesse, and put as it were a sacke vpon it.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
I will clothe the sky with darkness, and will make its covering as sackcloth.

English Revised Version
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Y schal clothe heuenes with derknessis, and Y schal sette a sak the hilyng of tho.

Update Bible Version
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

Webster's Bible Translation
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.

New English Translation
I can clothe the sky in darkness; I can cover it with sackcloth."

New King James Version
I clothe the heavens with blackness, And I make sackcloth their covering."

New Living Translation
I dress the skies in darkness, covering them with clothes of mourning."

New Life Bible
I clothe the heavens with darkness. I make cloth made from hair its covering."

New Revised Standard
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and make sackcloth their covering.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
I clothe the heavens with gloom, And, of sackcloth, make I their covering.

Douay-Rheims Bible
I will clothe the heavens with darkness, and will make sackcloth their covering.

Revised Standard Version
I clothe the heavens with blackness, and make sackcloth their covering."

Young's Literal Translation
I clothe the heavens [with] blackness, And sackcloth I make their covering.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"I clothe the heavens with blackness And make sackcloth their covering."

Contextual Overview

¹The LORD declares this; "Where is the certificate of divorce By which I have sent your mother away, [O Israel]? Or to which one of My creditors did I sell you [as slaves]? In fact, You were sold for your wickedness [your sin, your injustice, your wrongdoing], And for your transgressions your mother was sent away. ²"Why, when I came, was there no man [to greet Me]? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Is My hand really so short that it cannot redeem [My servants]? Or have I no power to rescue? Listen carefully, with My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers into a desert; Their fish stink because there is no water And die of thirst. ³"I clothe the heavens with the blackness [of storm clouds] And make sackcloth [of mourning] their clothing."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Exodus 10:21, Psalms 18:11, Psalms 18:12, Matthew 27:45, Revelation 6:12

Reciprocal: Jeremiah 4:28 - the heavens Nahum 1:4 - rebuketh Mark 15:33 - darkness

Cross-References

Genesis 50:10
When they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they mourned there with a great lamentation (expressions of mourning for the deceased) and [extreme demonstrations of] sorrow [according to Egyptian custom]; and Joseph observed a seven-day mourning for his father.

Numbers 20:29
When all the congregation saw that Aaron had died, all the house of Israel wept (mourned) for him thirty days.

Deuteronomy 21:13
"She shall take off the clothes of her captivity and remain in your house, and weep (mourn) for her father and her mother a full month. After that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.

Deuteronomy 34:8
So the sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days; then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

I clothe the heavens with blackness,.... With gross and thick darkness; perhaps referring to the three days' darkness the Egyptians were in, Exodus 10:12, or with thick and black clouds, as in tempestuous weather frequently; or by eclipses of the sun; there was an extraordinary instance of great darkness at the time of Christ's crucifixion, Matthew 27:45

and I make sackcloth their covering; that being black, and used in times of mourning; the allusion may be to the tents of Kedar, which were covered with sackcloth, or such like black stuff. The fall of the Pagan empire, through the power of Christ and his Gospel, is signified by the sun becoming black as sackcloth of hair, Revelation 6:12. Jarchi interprets this parabolically of the princes of the nations, when the Lord shall come to take vengeance upon them; as Kimchi does the sea, and the rivers, in the preceding verse, of the good things of the nations of the world, which they had in great abundance, and should be destroyed.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I clothe the heavens with blackness - With the dark clouds of a tempest - perhaps with an allusion to the remarkable clouds and tempests that encircled the brow of Sinai when he gave the law. Or possibly alluding to the thick darkness which he brought over the land of Egypt (Exodus 10:21; Grotius). In the previous verse, he had stated what he did on the earth, and referred to the exhibitions of his great power there. He here refers to the exhibition of his power in the sky; and the argument is, that he who had thus the power to spread darkness over the face of the sky, had power also to deliver his people.

I make sackcloth their covering - Alluding to the clouds. Sackcloth was a coarse and dark cloth which was usually worn as an emblem of mourning (see the note at Isaiah 3:24). The same image is used in Revelation 6:12 : ‘And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair.’ To say, therefore, that the heavens were clothed with sackcloth, is one of the most striking and impressive figures which can be conceived.