Lamentations 5:10

10 Our skin is blackened like an oven; they are convulsed, because of the storms of 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 Servants have ruled over us: there is none to ransom out of their hand.
9 We shall bring in our bread with our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.
10 Our skin is blackened like an oven; they are convulsed, because of the storms of famine.
11 They humbled the women in Sion, the virgins in the cities of Juda.
12 Princes were hanged up by their hands: the elders were not honoured.

The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.