"Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is wither…" — Lamentations 4:8

Lamentations 4:8 · KJV

“Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. {blacker...: Heb. darker than blackness}”

— Lamentations 4:8

Verse 7

Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing {was} of sapphire:

Verse 9

{They that be} slain with the sword are better than {they that be} slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for {want of} the fruits of the field. {pine...: Heb. flow out}

Lamentations 4 — Context

For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her. {punishment of the iniquity: or, iniquity}

Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing {was} of sapphire:

Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. {blacker...: Heb. darker than blackness}

{They that be} slain with the sword are better than {they that be} slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for {want of} the fruits of the field. {pine...: Heb. flow out}

The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Cross References

Lamentations 5:10

Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine. {terrible: or, terrors, or, storms}

Job 30:30

My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

Psalms 102:3-5

For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth. {like...: or, (as some read) into smoke}

Psalms 119:83

For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; {yet} do I not forget thy statutes.

Job 19:20

My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth. {and to: or, as to}

Psalms 38:3

{There is} no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger; neither {is there any} rest in my bones because of my sin. {rest: Heb. peace, or, health}

Psalms 32:4

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.

Job 30:17-19

My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.