For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. (Jeremiah 8:21)
What is Jeremiah trying to say here that he is black?? Let's find out from biblical Commentaries :
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Elliott's commentary for English readers :
(21) For the hurt . . .—Now the prophet again speaks in his own person. He is crushed in that crushing of his people. His face is darkened, as one that mourns. (Comp. Psalm 38:6; Joshua 5:11.)
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For the hurt ... hurt - literally, "Because of the breaking ... broken." These are the words of the prophet, whose heart is crushed by the cry of his countrymen.
I am black - Or, I go mourning
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21. black—sad in visage with grief (Joe 2:6).
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The prophet here shows how deeply he is affected with the people’s misery, he deeply sympathized with them.
The hurt; it signifies breach, I am broken in my spirit; and so it answers to the breach that is made upon the people.
I am black; I am as those that are clad in deep mourning, Psalm 38:6 Jeremiah 14:2.
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I am black; with grief and sorrow. The Targum is,
"my face is covered with blackness, black
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21. the hurt] lit. the breach, and so the verb that follows.
black] mg. mourning (as to garb).
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Verse 21. - For the hurt, etc.; literally, because of the breaking, etc., I am broken; comp. Jeremiah 23:9, and the phrase "broken in heart" (Isaiah 61:1, etc.). The prophet feels crushed by the sense of the utter ruin of his people. I am black; rather, I go inmourning (so Psalm 38:6; Psalm 42:9). The root means rather "foulness" or "squalor" than "blackness" (comp. Job 6:16, where "blackish," an epithet of streams, should rather be "turbid").
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Rashis commentary
I mourn: lit. I am darkened, an expression of blackness and darkness.
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There we have it, the idea of having a black face means mourning or hurt , sad grief how does a black person take this statement his colour being the sign of negative hope!!! There's more from the jewish oral law Talmud
Black skin a curse from the Talmud
So where did this racist myth come from? The idea that black skin is a curse comes from the Jewish Talmud. In the Talmudic book of Sanhedrin 108a, we learn that there were three who had sex while
on the ark; a dog, a raven and Noah’s son Ham. All three were punished, and Ham’s punishment was in his skin, it is said he was “smitten in his skin”. The footnote claims that this curse produced black skinned “negros”.
Our Rabbis taught: Three copulated in the ark, and they were all punished — the dog, the raven, and
Ham. The dog was doomed to be tied, the raven expectorates [his seed into his mate's mouth]. and Ham was smitten in his skin. [34] - Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 108a
Footnote 34: I.e., from him descended Cush (the negro) who is black-skinned.
3. Negros as “creatures”
“Negros” are lumped in with diseased persons and called “creatures’ in the Talmudic book of Berakoth 58b
R. Joshua b. Levi said: On seeing pock-marked persons one says: Blessed be He who makes strange creatures. An objection was raised: If one
sees a negro, a very red or very white person, a hunchback, a dwarf or a dropsical person, he says: Blessed be He who makes strange creatures. – Babylonian
Talmud, Berakoth 58b
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