Lamentations 4:8

8 Their appearance is ¹blacker than soot, They are not recognized in the streets; Their ²skin is shriveled on their bones, It is withered, it has become 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.

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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 For the iniquity of the daughter of my people Is greater than the sin of Sodom, Which was overthrown as in a moment, And no hands were turned toward her.

7 Her consecrated ones were purer than snow, They were whiter than milk; They were more ruddy in body than corals, Their polishing was like lapis lazuli.

8 Their appearance is blacker than soot, They are not recognized in the streets; Their skin is shriveled on their bones, It is withered, it has become like wood.

9 Better are those slain with the sword Than those slain with hunger; For they pine away, being stricken For lack of the fruits of the field.

10 The hands of compassionate women Boiled their own children; They became food for them Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Cross References

• 1. Job 30:30; Lamentations 5:10
• 2. Job 19:20; Psalms 102:3-5