8 Their visage is darker than blackness, they are not known in the streets; their skin cleaveth to their bones, it is withered, it is become like a stick.
My skin is become black [and falleth] off me, and my bones are parched with heat.
For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as a firebrand. My heart is smitten and withered like grass; yea, I have forgotten to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my flesh.
My bones cleave to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.
For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; I do not forget thy statutes.
And they two went until they came to Bethlehem. And it came to pass, when they came to Bethlehem, that all the city was moved about them, and the [women] said, Is this Naomi? And she said to them, Call me not Naomi -- call me Mara; for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.
And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice and wept. And they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward the heavens.
The night pierceth through my bones [and detacheth them] from me, and my gnawing pains take no rest: By their great force they have become my raiment; they bind me about as the collar of my coat. He hath cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.
For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture was turned into the drought of summer. Selah.
There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine indignation; no peace in my bones, because of my sin.
As many were astonished at thee -- his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the children of men
How is the gold become dim! the most pure gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary poured out at the top of all the streets! The sons of Zion, so precious, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Lamentations 4
Commentary on Lamentations 4 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 4
This chapter is another single alphabet of Lamentations for the destruction of Jerusalem, like those in the first two chapters.
Lam 4:1-12
The elegy in this chapter begins with a lamentation of the very sad and doleful change which the judgments of God had made in Jerusalem. The city that was formerly as gold, as the most fine gold, so rich and splendid, the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth, has become dim, and is changed, has lost its lustre, lost its value, is not what it was; it has become dross. Alas! what an alteration is here!
Lam 4:13-20
We have here,
Lam 4:21-22
David's psalms of lamentation commonly conclude with some word of comfort, which is as life from the dead and light shining out of darkness; so does this lamentation here in this chapter. The people of God are now in great distress, their aspects all doleful, their prospects all frightful, and their ill-natured neighbours the Edomites insult over them and do all they can to exasperate their destroyers against them. Such was their violence against their brother Jacob (Obad. 10), such their spleen at Jerusalem, of which they cried, Rase it, rase it, Ps. 137:7. Now it is here foretold, for the encouragement of God's people,