Bible Strands
Lamentations 5:10
Our skin is as hot as an oven with fever from our hunger.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The collective voice of Judah’s exiles addresses God, reporting their condition immediately after the city’s fall. They describe surviving lethal raids for food and enduring sexual violence in the aftermath of siege.
The words — The verb נִכְמָרוּ (nikh.Ma.ru) means "they have grown hot," applied to skin (עוֹרֵנוּ, o.Re./nu) that burns like an oven (כְּתַנּוּר, ke./ta.Nur) from the burning heat (זַלְעַפּוֹת, zal.'a.Fot) of hunger (רָעָב, ra.'Av). The literal sense describes feverish inflammation and extreme desiccation caused by starvation.
The thread — This physical deterioration mirrors the skin shriveled in Lamentations 4:8, the burning fever in Job 30:30, and the smoke-dried wineskin in Psalms 119:83. Each passage uses bodily decay to document intense suffering or steadfastness.
Why it lands — The text demands acknowledgment of starvation’s physiological reality without minimizing its severity. It requires the reader to confront how prolonged deprivation reduces the body to a state of extreme heat and breakdown.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
Cross-references
- Lamentations 4:8 But now their appearance is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick.
- Job 30:30 My skin grows black and peels, and my bones burn with fever.
- Psalms 119:83 Though I am like a wineskin dried up by smoke, I do not forget Your statutes.
- Lamentations 3:4 He has worn away my flesh and skin; He has shattered my bones.