She is empty, and void, and waste: and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and much pain is in all loins, and the faces of them all gather blackness. She is empty, and void, and waste - The original is strongly emphatic; the words are of the same sound; and increase in their length as they point out great, greater, and greatest desolation.
בוקה ומבוקה ומבלקה
Bukah, umebukah, umebullakah.
She is void, empty, and desolate.
The faces of them all gather blackness - This marks the diseased state into which the people had been brought by reason of famine, etc.; for, as Mr. Ward justly remarks, "sickness makes a great change in the countenance of the Hindoos; so that a person who was rather fair when in health, becomes nearly black by sickness." This was a general case with the Asiatics.