Lamentations 4:8

8 Now their faces are blacker than coal; in the streets they go unrecognized. Their skin has shriveled over their bones and become as dry as a stick.

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 For the offense of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of S'dom, which was overthrown in an instant, without a hand to help her.
7 Her princes were purer than snow; they were whiter than milk, their bodies more ruddy than pink pearls, as beautiful as sapphires.
8 Now their faces are blacker than coal; in the streets they go unrecognized. Their skin has shriveled over their bones and become as dry as a stick.
9 Those slain by the sword are better off than those who are dying from hunger; since these waste away as if pierced through, for lack of food from the fields.
10 With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children; their children became their food when the daughter of my people was destroyed.
Complete Jewish Bible Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.