Does Lamentations 5:10 show the Israelites are black.
A verse that is used to support the belief that the Bible states the Israelites were black is Lamentations 5:10
Lamentations 5:10 Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
It has to be stated that, I don’t think there are many Hebrew Israelites that still use this verse today when arguing for the colour of the Israelites. However it is a verse that has been used and there certainly are at least some (I have personally had this verse quoted to me by at least one Hebrew Israelite) that still use it as evidence for the Israelites being black. So we need to at least address it.
As always we must analyse the text and see if it does what it is claimed it does(even if by just a small amount of people).
This is part of my book the Holy Bible vs The Hebrew Israelites
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This verse is part of a prayer of restoration for Israel.
The first 9 verses is the person in prayer calling on the Lord to remember all the terrible things that have come upon the people.
Lamentation 5:1Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.
2Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.
3We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows.
4We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us.
5Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest.
6We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.
8Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand.
9We gat our bread with the peril of our lives because of the sword of the wilderness.
And in verse 10 we get the statement regarding the skin.
Lamentations 5:10 Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
It is inferred that the black is in reference to the colour of the skin, but we shall see this is simply not the case. Notice that the reason for the sin being black is also stated in the SAME verse….BECAUSE of the terrible FAMINE. The reason for the famine is the same reason that their skin was “black” like an oven, because of the intense heat. And that is EXACTLY what is being stated in the verse. The word translated as Black is the Hebrew word כָּמַר kamar and means HOT or to become hot it does not refer to a colour. Kamar is not the COLOUR black. The colour black is שָׁחֹר shachor.
So here the verse is just as easily interpreted our skin was HOT like an oven ……
It’s probably why most don’t use it as evidence anymore.