Lamentations 5:10

10 Our skin became black like an oven because of the terrible famine.

Lamentations 5:10 Meaning and Commentary

Lamentations 5:10

Our skin was black like an oven, because of the terrible
famine.
] Or "terrors [and horrors of] famine"; which are very dreadful and distressing: or, "the storms of famine"; see ( Psalms 11:6 ) ( 119:53 ) ; or, "burning winds" ^F21; such as are frequent in Africa and Asia; to which the famine is compared that was in Jerusalem, at the siege of it, both by the Chaldeans and Romans; and as an oven, furnace, or chimney becomes black by the smoke of the fire burnt in it, or under it; so the skins of the Jews became black through these burning winds and storms, or burnings of famine; see ( Lamentations 4:8 ) . So Jarchi says the word has the signification of "burning"; for famine as it were burns up the bodies of men when most vehement.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F21 (ber twpelz) "horrorum famis", Montanus; "terrores, [vel] tremores", Vatablus; "procellas famis", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "exustiones", Pagninus, Calvin; "adustiones famis", Stockius, p. 281.

Lamentations 5:10 In-Context

8 Slaves have ruled over us: there was no one to deliver us out of their hand.

9 We got our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.

10 Our skin became black like an oven because of the terrible famine.

11 They ravished the women in Zion and the virgins in the cities of Judah.

12 Princes were hanged up by their hand; the countenance of the elders was not honoured.