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.
Now, on the contrary, he says that the Nazarites were become withered, that their skin clave to their bones, that, in short, they were so deformed that they could not be known, not only in obscure corners, but even in the open street, hi the middle of the market-place.
Jerusalem, once splendid as fine gold, has become dull and worthless dross. The temple's gold was sullied in the fire, its precious stones scattered like rubbish through the streets. When God withdrew His presence through provoked judgment, no wonder the sanctuary itself was profaned and cast down.
AI summary
Commenting on Lamentations 4:1-12
Their visage is blacker than a coal,.... Or, "darker than blackness"; or, "dark through blackness" (y); by reason of the famine, and because of grief and trouble for themselves and their friends, which changed their complexions, countenances, and skins; they that looked before as pure as snow, as white as milk, as clear as pearls, as polished as sapphire, now as black as charcoal, as...