Lamentations 4:8

8 But their appearance grew darker than soot; they weren't recognized in the streets. Their skin shriveled on their bones; it became dry like wood.

Lamentations 4:8 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 4:8

Their visage is blacker than a coal
Or, "darker than blackness"; or, "dark through blackness" F25; by reason of the famine, and because of grief and trouble for themselves and their friends, which changed their complexions, countenances, and skins; they that looked before as pure as snow, as white as milk, as clear as pearls, as polished as sapphire, now as black as charcoal, as blackness itself: they are not known in the streets;
not taken notice of in a distinguished manner; no respect shown them as they walk the streets, as used to be; nay, their countenances were so altered, and their apparel so sordid, as not to be known by their friends, when they met them in public: their skin cleaveth to their bones;
have nothing but skin and bone, who used to be plump and fat: it is withered, it is become like a stick;
the skin wrinkled and shrivelled up, the flesh being gone; and the bone became like a stick, or a dry piece of wood, its moisture and marrow being dried up.


FOOTNOTES:

F25 (rwxvm Kvx) "obscurior ipsa nigredine", Tigurine version; "magis quam nigredo vel carbo", Vatablus; "prae caligines", Calvin; "ex nigredine", Piscator.

Lamentations 4:8 In-Context

6 Greater was the punishment of the daughter of my people than Sodom's penalty, which was quickly overthrown without any hand-wringing.
7 Her nazirites were purer than snow; they were more dazzling than milk. Their limbs were redder than coral; their bodies were sapphire.
8 But their appearance grew darker than soot; they weren't recognized in the streets. Their skin shriveled on their bones; it became dry like wood.
9 Things were better for those stabbed by the sword than for those stabbed by famine— those who bled away, pierced, lacking food from the field.
10 The hands of loving women boiled their own children to become their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people.
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