My heart is blighted like grass, and withered, for I forget to eat my bread.
Parallel translations
- KJV My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.
- BSB My heart is afflicted, and withered like grass; I even forget to eat my bread.
- NKJV My heart is stricken and withered like grass, So that I forget to eat my bread.
- NASB My heart has been struck like grass and has withered, Indeed, I forget to eat my bread.
- NLT My heart is sick, withered like grass, and I have lost my appetite.
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 heart is struck down and withered like grass, so that he forgets to eat. Grief has overtaken his very appetite for life.
Overview
The psalmist's inner life is crushed, withered like cut grass under the sun. So consumed is he by sorrow that he neglects basic nourishment. This honest portrait of depression and grief shows that Scripture does not hide the weight of suffering, even as it directs the sufferer to God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 20
- Isa 40:7The grass withers, the flower fades, because Yahweh’s breath blows on it. Surely the people are like grass.
- Ps 37:2For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither like the green herb.
- Matt 26:37–38He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and severely troubled.
- Ezra 10:6Then Ezra rose up from before God’s house, and went into the room of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. When he came there, he ate no bread, nor drank water; for he mourned because of their trespass of the captivity.
- Acts 9:9He was without sight for three days, and neither ate nor drank.
- 1 Sam 1:7–8As he did so year by year, when she went up to Yahweh’s house. Her rival provoked her; therefore she wept, and didn’t eat.
- Ps 77:3I remember God, and I groan. I complain, and my spirit is overwhelmed. Selah.
- Lam 3:13He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.
- Job 6:4For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.
- Ps 69:20Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none.
- Job 10:1“My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
- Ps 55:4–5My heart is severely pained within me. The terrors of death have fallen on me.
- Job 33:20So that his life abhors bread, and his soul dainty food.
- 2 Sam 12:17The elders of his house arose beside him, to raise him up from the earth: but he would not, and he didn’t eat bread with them.
- Ps 42:6My God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar.
- Ps 143:3–4For the enemy pursues my soul. He has struck my life down to the ground. He has made me live in dark places, as those who have been long dead.
- Ps 6:2–3Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am faint. Yahweh, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
- Lam 3:20My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
- Ps 102:11My days are like a long shadow. I have withered like grass.
- Ps 102:9For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mixed my drink with tears,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 102:4 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.