Lamentations 4:8

8 Cheth Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets; their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered; it is dry like 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.

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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 Vau For the iniquity of the daughter of my people has increased more than the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and companies did not camp upon her.

7 Zain Her Nazarites were whiter than snow; they were more radiant than milk; their composure had more fire than the precious stones cut from sapphire:

8 Cheth Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets; their skin cleaves to their bones; it is withered; it is dry like a stick.

9 Teth Those slain with the sword are better than those slain with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the earth.

10 Jod The hands of the compassionate women have cooked their own children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.