While mourning, Israelites would put ashes and dust on their heads. Why?
Yahweh told Adam and Eve that they would die, returning to the dust: From dust you were taken, to dust you shall return. Abram prayed to Yahweh saying that he was nothing but dust and ashes, acknowledging that he was made from earth, and mortal.
Ashes and dust are associated with human frailty and death, and putting ashes and dust on the head is a symbolic expression of death. At the same time, it is a plea to the God who raises the dead to bring us from the dust. Covering ourselves in dust is a way of saying “we are in the grave,” a physical expression of utter helplessness. It is an enacted cry asking the Lord to have compassion.
It is also a renunciation of glory. Glory crowns the head, but dust and ashes are a crown of humiliation. When Israelites crowned themselves with dust, they were doing what the king of Nineveh did – laying aside his royal robes and his throne for a seat in the ashes and a robe of sackcloth (Jonah 3:6). It is again an enacted plea: We acknowledge we are afflicted, and we plea that the Lord would exalt the humble.
Ashes and dust are a cry from the cross.
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