“And rend your heart, and not your garments…” The custom of the ancients was to rend their clothes as an expression of something extraordinary happening to them. One of these special occasions was when they repented of their sins. Rending their garments was to be an outward sign of an inward act. It was to manifest abhorrence for what they had done. It was meant to signify that they were “cut to the heart,” so to speak. A prototype, if you please, of our “altar calls” today.
Matthew Henry says of our text, “The sign without the thing signified is but a jest, and a mockery, and an affront to God.” I’m fearful much of our external show of repentance today is just that—external. It is only skin deep. Like Esau of old, it never really reached our hearts. No amount of outward show can substitute for inward sorrow. David knew this. In his blessed Psalm of repentance he penned, “…a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”
When we rend our hearts, God will rend the Heavens.
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