Lamentations 5 · Verse 10

Lamentations 5:10

Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
Lamentations 5:10, King James Version

Lamentations 5:10 in other translations

BSBOur skin is as hot as an oven with fever from our hunger.
WEBOur skin is black like an oven, because of the burning heat of famine.
ASVOur skin is black like an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine.
YLTOur skin as an oven hath been burning, Because of the raging of the famine.
DARBYOur skin gloweth like an oven, because of the burning heat of the famine.
BBEOur skin is heated like an oven because of our burning heat from need of food.
WebsterOur skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.

What does Lamentations 5:10 mean?

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
10. As an oven is scorched with too much fire, so our skin with the hot blast of famine (Margin, rightly, "storms," like the hot simoom). Hunger dries up the pores so that the skin becomes like as if it were scorched by the sun (Job 30:30; Psa 119:83).

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown, 1871 · public domain

Adam Clarke's Commentary
Verse 10 Our skin was black - because of the terrible famine - Because of the searching winds that burnt up every green thing, destroying vegetation, and in consequence producing a famine.

Adam Clarke, 1831 · public domain

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on Lamentations 5:1-16

The Jewish nation supplicating the Divine favour. Verses 1-16 Is any afflicted? Let him pray; and let him in prayer pour out his complaint to God. The people of God do so here; they complain not of evils feared, but of evils felt. If penitent and patient under what we suffer for the sins of our fathers, we may expect that He who punishes, will return in mercy to us. They acknowledge, Woe unto us that we have sinned!…

Read the full comment on Lamentations 5:1-16 →

Lamentations 5:10 in the original Hebrew

Word-by-word with transliteration, English gloss and Strong's number. Tap a number for the full definition and every place the word is used.

עוֹרֵ֙נוּ֙o.Re.nuskin ourH5785
כְּתַנּ֣וּרke.ta.Nurlike an ovenH8574
נִכְמָ֔רוּnikh.Ma.ruthey have grown hotH3648
מִפְּנֵ֖יmi.pe.Nei<from> because ofH6440
זַלְעֲפ֥וֹתzal.'a.Fot[the] burning heat ofH2152
רָעָֽב\׃ra.'AvhungerH7458

Source: STEPBible TAHOT/TAGNT (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0).

Cross references for Lamentations 5:10

  • Lamentations 4:8

    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.

  • Job 30:30

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

  • Psalms 119:83

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

  • Lamentations 3:4

    My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.

Ranked by reader votes · OpenBible.info cross references (CC BY).

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
skin.
3:4; 4:8; Job 30:30; Ps 119:83
terrible famine. or, terrors, or storms, of famine.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (Samuel Bagster, c. 1836) · public domain

Context

  • Lamentations 5:9

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

  • Lamentations 5:10

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

  • Lamentations 5:11

    They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.

Read all of Lamentations 5

Lamentations 5:10 in other languages

Spanish
Reina-Valera 1909		Nuestra piel se ennegreció como un horno á causa del ardor del hambre.
French
Bible J.N. Darby 1885		Notre peau brûle comme un four, à cause de l’ardeur de la faim.
German
Elberfelder 1871		Vor den Gluten des Hungers brennt unsere Haut wie ein Ofen.
Latin
Clementine Vulgate		Pellis nostra quasi clibanus exusta est, a facie tempestatum famis.