For my days have ended in smoke, And my bones have been scorched like a hearth.
Parallel translations
- WEB For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch.
- KJV For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.
- BSB For my days vanish like smoke, and my bones burn like glowing embers.
- NKJV For my days are consumed like smoke, And my bones are burned like a hearth.
- NLT For my days disappear like smoke, and my bones burn like red-hot coals.
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
His days vanish like smoke and his bones burn like a hearth. He describes how affliction is consuming his life.
Overview
Vivid imagery conveys the fleeting, wasting nature of the psalmist's suffering. Smoke pictures the brevity of life, and burning bones the fever and pain that grip him. Such lament gives voice to deep human suffering and teaches that we may bring even our wasting away to God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Jas 4:14Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.
- Lam 1:13“From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them; He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned me back. He has made me desolate and faint all day long.
- Ps 31:10For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.
- Job 30:30My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.
- Ps 37:20But the wicked shall perish. The enemies of Yahweh shall be like the beauty of the fields. They will vanish — vanish like smoke.
- Lam 3:4He has made my flesh and my skin old; he has broken my bones.
- Ps 22:14–15I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax; it is melted within me.
- Ps 119:83For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke. I don’t forget your statutes.
- Ps 38:3There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation, neither is there any health in my bones because of my sin.
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 102:3 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.