My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
Parallel translations
- WEB He has made my flesh and my skin old; he has broken my bones.
- BSB He has worn away my flesh and skin; He has shattered my bones.
- NKJV He has aged my flesh and my skin, And broken my bones.
- NASB He has consumed my flesh and my skin, He has broken my bones.
- NLT He has made my skin and flesh grow old. He has broken my bones.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God has aged his flesh and broken his bones. It depicts suffering that reaches into the very body.
Overview
The imagery of worn-out skin and broken bones conveys physical wasting under affliction, a person prematurely aged by sorrow. Such bodily anguish is part of the honest catalog of the sufferer's pain. The broken bones recall, by contrast, the Messiah whose suffering was profound yet whose bones were not broken (Psalm 34:20; John 19:36), the One who bore our griefs.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 51:8Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.
- Isa 38:13I reckoned till morning, that, as a lion, so will he break all my bones: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.
- Jer 50:17Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria hath devoured him; and last this Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath broken his bones.
- Ps 38:2–8For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.
- Ps 31:9–10Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly.
- Ps 102:3–5For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.
- Job 16:8–9And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face.
- Ps 22:14I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
- Ps 32:3When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The weeping over a ruined city and the steadfast mercies that are new every morning point to the man of sorrows who wept over Jerusalem and whose mercy rises new from the grave.
How Lamentations 3:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.