It goes without saying that this
last point about Ham’s ‘black’ skin raises a number of sensitive issues for our
own time. Lamentations 5:10, especially when read alongside Lam 4:7–8, can be
seen to express a value judgment about skin color: white denotes privilege,
health and wealth, while black or dark (scorched) skin denotes deprivation,
sickness and poverty. Is the Bible exhibiting tendencies that would now be
identified as racist, as some scholars have suggested in relation to such texts
as Num 12:1 (‘Miriam and Aaron spoke against him [Moses] because of the Cushite
woman he had married’); S of S 1:5 (‘I am black, but/and beautiful’); and Amos
9:7a (‘Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel?’)? And if
translators perpetuate these tendencies, are they, too, open to accusations of
racism? These are difficult questions to answer, but they are crucial for
readers, as well as translators (not to mention translators of translations
such as the work of the Targumists), to bear in mind. (Paul M. Joyce
and Diana Lipton, Lamentations through the Centuries [Wiley Blackwell
Bible Commentaries; West Sussex, UK: A. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.,
Publication, 2013), 181-82)
