The second strophe. - Lamentations 4:7, Lamentations 4:8. The picture of the misery that has befallen the princes. נזירים, princes, prop. separati, here non voto (Nazarites) sed dignitate, as Nolde appropriately remarks; see on Genesis 49:26. זכך is used, Job 15:15; Job 25:5, of the brightness of the heaven and the stars; here it is used of female beauty. Thenius would refer "pure (or bright) as snow and milk" to the white clothing, "because the Orientals have not milk-white faces." But the second member irrefragably shows that the reference is to bodily form; and for the very reason adduced by Thenius, a comparatively whiter skin than is commonly met with is esteemed more beautiful. So also does Sol 5:10, "My friend is white and red," show the high esteem in which beauty was held (Gerlach). אדם, to be reddish. עצם, "bone," for the body (pars pro toto). פּנינים, not (white) pearls, but (red) corals. "The white and the red are to be understood as mixed, and shading into one another, as our popular poetry speaks of cheeks which 'like milk and purple shine' " (Delitzsch on Job 28:18, Clark's translation). "Sapphire their form" (גּזרה, prop. cut, taille, of the shape of the body). The point of the comparison is not the colour, but the luminosity, of this precious stone. Once on a time the princes glittered so; but (Lamentations 4:8) now their form is dark as blackness, i.e., every trace of beauty and splendour has vanished. Through hunger and want their appearance is so disfigured, that they are no longer recognised in the streets (חוּצות, in contrast with "at home," in their own neighbourhood). "The skin sticks to the bones," so emaciated are they; cf. Psalm 102:4; Job 19:20. צפד, ἅπ. λεγ., to adhere firmly. The skin has become dry (יבשׁ) like wood.

Lamentations 4:13 Parallel Commentaries

the sins

Lamentations 2:14 Your prophets have seen vain and foolish things for you: and they have not discovered your iniquity, to turn away your captivity...

Jeremiah 5:31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so...

Jeremiah 6:13 For from the least of them even to the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness...

Jeremiah 14:14 Then the LORD said to me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spoke to them...

Jeremiah 23:11-21 For both prophet and priest are profane; yes, in my house have I found their wickedness, said the LORD...

Ezekiel 22:26-28 Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned my holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane...

Micah 3:11,12 The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money...

Zephaniah 3:3,4 Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow...

that

Jeremiah 2:20 For of old time I have broken your yoke, and burst your bands; and you said, I will not transgress...

Jeremiah 26:8,9 Now it came to pass, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people...

Matthew 23:31,33-37 Why you be witnesses to yourselves, that you are the children of them which killed the prophets...

Luke 11:47-51 Woe to you! for you build the sepulchers of the prophets, and your fathers killed them...

Acts 7:52 Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One...

1 Thessalonians 2:15,16 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men...