איכה, פרק ה׳, פסוק י׳

Extreme starvation brings the human body to a point of total collapse, breaking even the strongest of individuals. Driven by the agony of hunger, the Israelites were willing to risk their lives against the dangers of the wilderness just to find bread, preferring that risk over a slow, painful death by starvation [אבן עזרא]. Their natural physical strength was actually so great that no military force could defeat them. It was only the crushing weight of this severe famine that finally broke their bodies and brought them down [לחם דמעה].

The physical toll of this starvation acted like a deep, burning fever [רש״י, אבן עזרא]. The intense heat of the famine severely damaged their skin, though there are different understandings of exactly how this appeared. The scorching heat caused the skin either to shrink and shrivel [ביאור שטיינזלץ] or to swell up [צאינה וראינה].

To capture this horrifying appearance, the skin is compared to an oven. One approach suggests the heat left the skin looking like burned dates. Another perspective focuses on the specific type of heat, comparing it to an oven that has not been fully fired. While a fully heated oven turns yellow, a partially heated one remains covered in black soot. In the same way, the skin of the starving Israelites turned dark and black with soot [תורה תמימה]. The sheer intensity of this suffering is understood in two distinct ways. It describes either the literal, scorching heat that consumed their bodies [רש״י], or the profound terror and deep fear that accompanies such a devastating famine [ביאור שטיינזלץ].