Now their appearance is blacker than soot; They go unrecognized in the streets; Their skin clings to their bones, It has become as dry as wood.
Parallel translations
- WEB Their appearance is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: Their skin clings to their bones; it is withered, it has become like a stick.
- KJV 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.
- BSB 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.
- NASB Their appearance is darker than soot, They are not recognized in the streets; Their skin is shriveled on their bones, It is dry, it has become like wood.
- NLT But now their faces are blacker than soot. No one recognizes them in the streets. Their skin sticks to their bones; it is as dry and hard as wood.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Now those same nobles are blackened, gaunt, and unrecognizable from famine.
Overview
In sharp contrast to verse 7, the once-radiant leaders are now darkened, skin shriveled on their bones, unknown in the streets. The famine has wasted them beyond recognition. This dramatic reversal portrays the wages of sin and the wasting effects of judgment, deepening the longing for the restoration God provides in Christ (Rom. 6:23).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Lam 5:10Our skin is black like an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine.
- Job 30:30My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.
- Ps 102:3–5For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch.
- Ps 119:83For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke. I don’t forget your statutes.
- Job 19:20My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.
- Ps 102:11My days are like a long shadow. I have withered like grass.
- Isa 52:14Just as many were astonished at you (his appearance was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men),
- Joel 2:6At their presence the peoples are in anguish. All faces have grown pale.
- Job 33:21His flesh is so consumed away, that it can’t be seen. His bones that were not seen stick out.
- Ps 32:4For day and night your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah.
- Lam 4:1–2How the gold has become dim! The most pure gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.
- Ruth 1:19–20So they both went until they came to Bethlehem. When they had come to Bethlehem, all the city was excited about them, and they asked, “Is this Naomi?”
- Ps 38:3There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation, neither is there any health in my bones because of my sin.
- Job 2:12When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky.
- Job 30:17–19In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest.
- Nah 2:10She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The weeping over a ruined city and the steadfast mercies that are new every morning point to the man of sorrows who wept over Jerusalem and whose mercy rises new from the grave.
How Lamentations 4:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.