Lamentations 5:10 (WEB)

Passage

Our skin is black like an oven, because of the burning heat of famine.

Nearby Context

Lamentations 5:8 Servants rule over us. There is no one to deliver us out of their hand.

Lamentations 5:9 We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword of the wilderness.

Lamentations 5:10 Our skin is black like an oven, because of the burning heat of famine.

Lamentations 5:11 They ravished the women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah.

Lamentations 5:12 Princes were hanged up by their hands. The faces of elders were not honored.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "skin", "black", "like", "oven", "burning", "heat", 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 get our bread at the peril..." into verse 11's "They ravished the women in Zion the...", 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.