Some read, ``for tremors;'' literally, ``from the face of tremors.'' Jerome renders
JOHN CALVIN that is, that they were so famished as though they were in a vast desert, and far away from every hospital, so that bread could nowhere be found. We now, then, perceive the meaning of the Prophet. He adds, ---
Lamentations 5:10
10. Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine.
10. Pelles nostrae quasi clibanus nigredinem contraxerunt ob exustiones famis.
Some read, ``for tremors;'' literally, ``from the face of tremors.'' Jerome renders it, ``tempests,'' but the word ``burnings'' is the most suitable; for he says that their skins were darkened, and he compares them to an oven. This metaphor often occurs in Scripture,
ye have been as among pots in the smoke, and deformed by blackness, yet your wings shall shine.'' (Psalm 68:14.)
God says that his people had contracted blackness, as though they had touched smoky pots, because they had been burnt as it were by many afflictions; for when we pine away in our evils, filthiness itself deforms us. But here he compares to an oven (which is the same thing) their skins or skin. He then says that the skin of every one was so wrinkled and darkened by blackness, that it was like an oven which is black through constant fire and smoke. The Prophet or whoever was the author of the 119th Psalm, uses another comparison, that he was like a bottle or a bladder, contracted by the smoke, and had wrinkles together with blackness. 591
The meaning is, that there was a degrading deformity in the people, for they were so famished that no moisture remained in them; and when moisture fails, then paleness and decay follow; and then from paleness a greater deformity and blackness, of which the Prophet now speaks. Hence I have said, that the word ``burnings'' is the most proper. For, if we say tempests or storms, a tempest does not certainly darken the skin; and if we render it tremors or tremblings, this would be far remote; but if we adopt the word burnings, the whole passage will appear consistent; and we know, that as food as it were irrigates the life of man, so famine burns it up, as
Scripture speaks also elsewhere. It follows, ---
Lamentations 5:11
11. They ravished the women in Zion, and the maids in the cities of Judah.
11. Mulieres in Sion afflictae fuerunt virgines in urbibus Juhudah
He mentions here another kind of reproach, that women had been ravished in
Jerusalem, and in other cities. 592 God had commanded chastity to be observed among his people. When, therefore, virgins and women were thus defiled, it was a thing extremely disgraceful. But the Prophet mentioned this also, in order that God might at length show himself propitious to his people after having been entreated.
(Deuteronomy 22:21-24.)
591The word {,{זלעפותoccurs in Psalm 11:6, and in the singular number in Psalm 119: 53. The versions and the Targ.
render it differently in the three places, for it is not found anywhere else. In Psalm 119:53, it is rendered ``horror'' in our version, and this meaning suits the passage in Psalm 11:6, and also this passage, --- Our skins, like an oven they became black, Because of the horrors of famine (or, horrible famine.) The word for ``skins'' is in the plural number according to several copies, and the verb requires it to be so. --- Ed.
592There is here a delicate word for a disgraceful act. The words literally are, — Women in Sion they humbled (or, were humbled,) And virgins in the cities of Judah. It is humbled by the Sept. and Vulg. "And" before "virgins" is supplied by the Vulg. and Syr. — Ed.