Lamentations 5:10 (KJV)

Passage

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

Nearby Context

Lamentations 5:8 Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.

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.

Lamentations 5:12 Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "skin", "black", "like", "oven", "terrible", and "famine". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "skin" and "black", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 9's "We gat our bread with the peril..." into verse 11's "They ravished the women in Zion and...", so "skin" and "black" belong inside that flow. In Lamentations context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "skin" and "black" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.