Ashes On Ash Wednesday...

[Jake Huether]

I know this question was answered in depth in another thread. But in my own contemplation of the meaning of the ashes, I had another thought, which wasn't touched on.

And so I ask:

Do the ashes we recieve on our foreheads have anything to do with the ashes the Israelites would "put on" as attonement in the OT?

It might mean the same thing as described in the other thread. But is this where the Tradition comes from?

Esther 4:1

When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly.

[cappie]

The custom of placing ashes on the heads of people and origionally the wearing of sackcloth is an ancient penitential practice common among Hebrew people (Jonas3:5-9;Jeremiah6:26,25:34;Matthew11:21) At First this ritual of ashes, along with its original scriptural meaning was not directly connected with Lent. As early as the 300s, it was adopted by local churches as part of their practice of temporally expelling public sinners from the community.

By the 7th century this custom had expanded into a public Ash wednesday ritual.

Ash Wednesday is the Church’s “Yom Kippur’ or the ‘Day of Atonement’.